Ambion's New Deals Fill 187,075 SF

The upshot is "they traded spaces and expanded" after last month's separation, Doug Dwyer, senior vice president in Austin for Transwestern Commercial Services, explains to GlobeSt.com. He says finish-out to complete the space swap will be done within two months in New York City-based TIAA-CREF's 380,000-sf stake in the park near East Ben White Boulevard and Interstate 35 in the southeastern submarket. The flex space carries a 65- cents-per-sf, triple net monthly quote.

Ambion founder Matthew Winkler spun off Ambion Diagnostics into Asuragen Inc. and sold Ambion Inc. to Norwalk, CT-based Applera Corp. The space swap was forged with Ambion Inc.'s 117,437-sf renewal and Winkler's decision to take 69,638 sf for the research division. When the dust settled, Dwyer says the dealmaking produced a 75,000-sf gain for TIAA-CREF, which has 70,000 sf left to fill in its five-building Southpark inventory.

Dwyer and Transwestern teammate, associate David Arnold, started working on the deal nine months ago although the decision to stay was made in a quick meeting with Winkler. "I have such a relationship with Matt that we sat down and in 15 minutes he shook hands on the deal," Dwyer recalls. As company officials worked out the asset split, the "trading spaces" scenario started to heat up in the past two months. "It was a lot of work done in two months by the time everyone figured out what was going to happen," Dwyer says. From a tenant-owner standpoint, the Ambion lease ended up being repackaged with a year to go on its term, according to TIAA-CREF's broker.

Ambion started out in 5,000 sf in the Southpark development. The emerging firms, which develop products for the study and analysis of RNA, will fill buildings F, O and P.