City's Oldest Law Firm To Anchor Class A Office

Every office project on the drawing board or coming out of the ground in the city was eyed by the firm, which is an original tenant in the 24-year-old Burnett Plaza at 801 Cherry St. The winning project is an 86,300-sf, four-story building at 600 W. 6th St. "What really swayed them was being able to put their name on the building and the prominent location," says Todd Burnette, senior vice president for Staubach Co.'s Fort Worth office. The firm's logo will be set into the structure's lower left-hand corner.

The office building will go up on a 36,100-sf tract, once a drive-through Bank of America. Jim Eagle, president of Red Oak Realty LLC and project developer, tells GlobeSt.com that the deal started to gel when Bank of America asked to open talks for an early renewal of its 90,000-sf lease in the 337,500-sf high rise right across the street, which was bought in February 2006 by the development partnership. "We didn't have a Downtown site when Cantey Hanger started searching," he says. "Bank of America came to us to renew. We looked at that site, knowing we might be able to build on it."

Eagle says Gideon Toal Inc., which designed Cantey Hanger Plaza, pulled together a cost and site development analysis that showed the project would work if parking was placed in 504-space, eight-story garage attached to the 19-story Bank of America Building at 500 W. 7th St. He says 75 spaces are earmarked for the law firm, which will have a private sky bridge from its offices to the garage. Based on today's construction cost, the office project will cost at least $15 million.

Red Oak Realty is the developer and will lease and manage the asset as it does Bank of America Building. First on 6th LP is the owner, a partnership of Fort Worth's Darden family, Eagle and Red Oak vice president Oleta Thompson.

"To be able to do this development, a plethora of non-related details had to fall in line," Eagle explains. In the end, Bank of America inked a 10-year renewal and relinquished its lease on the vacant tract, allowing the owner to land a lead tenant to expand its footprint in the Downtown. The CB Richard Ellis team of Phil Puckett, Joseph Cicardo and Robert Scully represented the bank, which had until January 2010 before its lease expired.

Cantey Hanger will occupy the entire fourth floor and part of the third, carving out 30,000 sf for starters and dibs on the balance. The law firm now has nearly 50,000 sf, including an extensive law library, on floors 20 and 21 in the one-million-sf Burnett Plaza. The law firm's broker credits today's technology for creating space efficiencies that reduced the law library's size and number of secretarial stations. The summer 2008 move will coincide with the lease expiration, according to Burnette, who teamed with Staubach senior vice president George Duncan to negotiate the deal.

Eagle says Cantey Hanger Plaza's first floor could be used for retail or restaurant space, but he's expecting it will all pan out as office. Regardless of the use, it's tagged at $28.50 per sf plus electric.

The Bank of America Building is a Skidmore Owings Merrill LLP design, with three sculptures by renowned artist and landscape architect, the late Isamu Noguchi, on the grounds. "It will be a complementary asset to the Federal Building, Burnett Plaza and our existing building," Eagle says.

Austin Commercial is Cantey Hanger Plaza's general contractor. Ground breaks this June, with delivery penciled for June 30, 2008.

"There are few if any people we would consider for a project of this size," Pollard Rogers, managing partner in the law firms, says in a press release. "If you're going to put your name on a building, you've got to join up with the right people. We have. We know them personally, we have common goals and there is a huge trust factor."