High-Profile Tenants Swap Spaces in Fountain Place, Lincoln Plaza

Bracewell & Giuliani has signed a 12-year lease for 54,009 sf in Fountain Place, setting up a backfill for most of the class AA space about to be vacated by 15-year tenant, Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr, which is leaving 71,000 sf and moving into 80,000 sf in the class A Lincoln Plaza. The high-profile tenant swap is "extremely rare," Michael Lewis, senior vice president of leasing and marketing for Fort Worth-based Crescent Real Estate Equities Co., tells GlobeSt.com. "It's also very rare that a block like that becomes available in a double AA building and there is pent-up demand from tenants in the A's and B's that would like to upgrade and haven't been able to do that in the past."

Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr is in the process of moving to 500 N. Akard St. Bracewell & Giuliani will get its keys in early 2006 to 1445 Ross Ave.

Details are limited about the Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr relocation, but brokers are talking about the other deal, which reeled in a 400-attorney firm that has New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as a partner. Fountain Place's floors 38, 39 and 40 will be gutted. "It's a space that needed work. Munsch Hardt had been there a long time," says Lewis, who partnered with Crescent's Kirby White for the negotiations. The finish-out plan will convert half of one floor into conference space; other upgrades will include a fully staffed business center and catering kitchen. Lewis says the new tenant also has dibs on the 41st floor of the 60-story building.

The Bracewell & Giuliani lease has been in the market about a year. "We had some real strategic objectives that they wanted to accomplish," says James Vanderslice, president of GLV Realty Advisors in Dallas. "We looked at practically every building in the CBD and every proposed building and we achieved their strategic objectives." The firm will be vacating 41,000 sf in Lincoln Plaza.

Sanford Brown, co-managing partner for Bracewell & Giuliani, says Dallas is "an expansion market for us and our move to Fountain Place demonstrates our firm's commitment to the city."

The 1.2-million-sf Fountain Place's occupancy is 91%. The quoted rent is $24 per sf plus electric. Crescent owns the high rise in a joint venture with an affiliate of the New York City-based JPMorgan Asset Management Inc.

Carl Ewert, executive vice president of Dallas-based Staubach Co. represented Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr. Blaine Hale with CB Richard Ellis Inc. leases the 1.1-million-sf Lincoln Plaza for CalSTRS. According to the North Texas Commercial Association of Realtors, there is 360,174 sf of direct space and 80,096 sf of sublease space available in the 45-story building. The direct rate is $11 per sf to $21 per sf annually plus electric while the sublease rate hovers $15 per sf.