Electronic Arts Leases 117,201 SF in Estimated $12M Deal

The deal immediately raised the 10-year-old building's occupancy to 100% from 10%. ZOM Residential Services Inc. of Winter Park, occupying 12,799 sf, was the only tenant at the 1950 Summit Park Dr. building prior to the Electronic Arts lease.

Gregg Morrison, executive director in the Orlando office of Advantis Real Estate Services Co., found Electronic Arts after "an extensive search of the market that began earlier this year," his office tells GlobeSt.com.

J. Paul Reynolds and Brian Ball in the Orlando office of Trammell Crow Co. negotiated for the corporate owner, ASP WT LLC.Reynolds tells GlobeSt.com the deal took "only about three months to do, from showing to lease." He says the lease was for "about five years."

Electronic Arts, which calls itself the world's leading interactive entertainment software company, asked participating brokers to withhold details of the leasing contract from the media. However, Maitland Center brokers intimate with the activities of the 47 class A office buildings in that submarket, tell GlobeSt.com the deal probably closed in the effective $20-per-sf rent range. Reynolds says he can't disclose the rent amount because of a confidentiality clause in the lease contract. p>Electronic Arts will be moving its 475 software engineers, graphic artists and other professionals to Summit Park I later this year from 80,000-sf quarters at nearby Maitland Colonnades. The deal was done at this time because EA's lease expires this year.

"We're expanding and our current building could no longer accommodate us," Ben Noel, EA's vice president and studio chief operating officer, says in a statement prepared by Trammell Crow. "We're continuously exploring the right place to build a facility in the Orlando area, but are pleased to call Summit Park I our new home for now."

ZOM Residential Services Inc. occupies half of the third floor. The 117,201-sf space was made available earlier this year when securities brokerage Charles Schwab consolidated its operations into the adjacent Summit Park II office building. Trammell Crow handles project leasing for both buildings.

Trammell Crow's Reynolds tells GlobeSt.com Schwab's space was vacant "for only five months" before it was filled. "Now that's something to write about," he says, in a metro Orlando market where vacancies in some submarkets are at 25%. Orlando's overall average vacancy mark in the second quarter is 16.9%, based on a survey of six major submarkets made by the Orlando office of Colliers Arnold Real Estate Services Co.