Amerisure Inks 10-Year Lease for Williams Square

Amerisure's 10-year lease is the third to be signed in the last three months for the four-building complex along North O'Connor Boulevard in the heart of Irving's favored corporate landing ground, the tony Las Colinas. Progress Fuels Corp., headquartered in Raleigh, NC took 6,970 sf in a five-year lease to open a Dallas office while Allied Domecq Spirits & Wine North America penned a seven-year lease for 13,800 sf to cut the ribbon on a new southern region division.

Negotiations are underway with several tenants to fill another 40,000 sf in the TIAA Realty Inc.-owned office property, Mark Dickenson, senior vice president in Dallas for the Atlanta-based Cousins Properties, tells GlobeSt.com. The 1.4-million-sf complex stands at 90% leased, with the latest pact pushing the 2003 deal-making to about 180,000 sf, including a previously reported 100,000-sf long-term lease to Flowserve Corp. in Dallas. "These tenants," he says of this year's activity, "want to make a long-term commitment with an owner who's really committed to the project."

Dickenson, who brokered on TIAA's behalf, says the Farmington Hills, MI-based Amerisure's occupancy will coincide with its lease expiration in the Stemmons Corridor. The company's broker, Kathy Bellinger with Jackson & Cooksey in Dallas, reviewed about 20 Las Colinas-area office properties and then pared the list to four. "Amerisure wanted to upgrade the current work environment and quickly focused on an exit from Stemmons to Las Colinas," Dickenson says. Ownership, amenities and atmosphere at Williams Square...and a competitive market rate...won the deal for Amerisure's Dallas Core Service Center and backfilled space that has been empty for 10 months, he says. The class A space rents for $21 per sf to $22 per sf plus electric.