Preston Young, co-managing partner with Stream Realty's Houston office says ABB leased the Westchase submarket building for more than nine years. Over the years the power and automation technology company sublet much of the space to various companies, and all of those leases roll at the end of 2009.
"We could have an office building with a high amount of vacancy in the Westchase submarket by the end of the year," Young tells GlobeSt.com. "This is an exciting project to be on. This is an opportune time to bring the building up to speed and make a significant amount of capital investment and taking it to the next level. It's a great building now. Our goal is to make it even stronger by year-end."
Young says Stream Realty has retained Morris Architects for the re-design. Though it's too soon to discuss budgets or other specifics, he says changes on the interior and exterior will be fairly significant. The building's name has already been changed to Pinnacle Westchase.
"The building has an inherently single-tenant nature and an atmosphere that doesn't lend itself too well to a multitenant situation," Young explains. "Some of our efforts will be to make sure the common areas are, in fact, true common areas and removing any histories associated with the previous tenant."
But Stream Realty isn't waiting for leases to expire. Young says every tenant currently subletting space in the nine-story, 10-year-old building is in play. Stream Realty's associates Stewart Lyman and senior associate Adam Jackson are currently working with many of them.
One sublet tenant, Quorum Business Solutions Inc. recently signed a full lease for 63,084 square feet. That transaction was handled by PM Realty Group, which had the previous leasing assignment. Quorum Business Solutions has taken the entire fourth floor and part of the second floor.
Other tenants subletting space include Shaw Environmental Group Inc., Spark Energy LP, Stone Webster Management Consultants Inc. and Grubb & Ellis Management Services Inc. Quoted lease rates are $19 per square foot, net.
"We're talking to any tenant that's out at Westchase or wants to be in Westchase," Young says. "The logical tenant is one that puts a high emphasis on moving into a first-class office environment or that requires large floor plates." He adds that the floor plates are 53,000 square feet.
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.