GlobeSt.com EXCLUSIVE: TCS Picks Up 1M-SF Plus in Assignments

Transwestern hired nine from Amerivest's property management team as part of the six-building, class A assignment, marking its second-largest space pick-up in a year with 714,874 sf, Michael Ogden, TCS' senior vice president of property management in Dallas, tells GlobeSt.com. The immediate plan for the portfolio, with occupancy in the high 90% range, is to pace the buildings through the Energy Star platform as it does with all TCS-managed assets, he says.

Ogden says two former AmeriVest managers were reassigned and three more hired to oversee the 456,155-sf, three-building assignment from Birmingham, AL-based Harbert, which staked its first claim in the metroplex with last week's acquisition from CarrAmerica Realty Corp. of Washington, DC. The new assignments take TCS to 12 million sf of managed space in the Dallas area and a 132-member local property management team.

Ogden says TCS competed against three other brokerage houses in the region for the AmeriVest assignment, but got in under the radar by helping Harbert during its due diligence to buy the Quorum portfolio. Dallas is the second city in a year in which the Denver-based AmeriVest outsourced management and held onto leasing duties. The smallest building in the AmeriVest portfolio, mostly late 1980s product, is the 44,487-sf Hampton Court at 4311 Oak Lawn Ave. and the largest is the 207,831-sf Greenhill Park at 14131 Midway Rd.

TCS' executive vice president Kim Butler, senior vice president Reid Caldwell and senior associate Clay Roby will lease Harbert's buildings, which are 80% occupied. Though Harbert's not planning any renovations, it did hike the rent to $17.50 per sf to $18.50 per sf, full service, after the closing--a $1.50 per sf rate change that the team says is justified due to the tight, class A market in the far north Dallas submarket and the logical trickle-down effect on the class B-plus trio of high-profile buildings. "They better step up before we raise the rates again," Butler says. "We're going to continue to monitor the market."

Caldwell says about 20% to 25% of the leases will roll this year in the Quorum portfolio while Butler pegs the "new deals" in the pipeline at 60,000 sf to 80,000 sf. "We're more than pleasantly surprised with the action," Caldwell says.