Telecom Firm Takes 800,000 SF at Uptown Munchen

The building not occupied by O2 is partially leased to Adobe, Business Objects, Grenkeleasing and Heine & Partner. That building has about 43,000 sf available for lease. Hines EVP of European operations Michael Topham tells GlobeSt.com that leases for the remaining space are under negtotiation, and that there are no forward purchase agreements for the property.

Completed less than one year ago, Uptown Munchen is located along the city's Mittlerer Ring road. The 479-foot office tower, with its sheer glass facade, is the tallest in Bavaria.

O2 plc has 100% ownership of mobile network operators in the UK, Germany and Ireland as well as a mobile Internet portal business. It has some 27 million customers and 15,000 employees. Earlier this year the European Union (EU) approved the Spanish company Telefonica's takeover of O2 for approximately $31.6 billion (£17.7 billion).

O2 was represented by Colliers Property Partners Immobilienkontor Schauer & Schoell. Hines director Karl Franz Wambach says the transaction represents the largest speculative office lease in Germany in a decade, but that could not be confirmed.

Hines entered the German real estate market in 1991, opening an office in Berlin. It now owns several properties there, including Hofgarten am Gendarmenmarkt, a 645,800-sf mixed-use development; Rosmarin Karree, a 269,000-sf mixed-use development; and DZ Bank, a 215,000-sf office project. Other Hines assets in Germany include Main Tower, an 893,000-sf office development in Frankfurt; Karlstrasse, a development management project in Munich; and Benrather Karree, a 344,500-sf office development in Dusseldorf.