HQ Tenant Claims 70,000 SF of $30M Project

HOUSTON-An oil industry production processor is taking 70,000 sf for its headquarters in a 144,000-sf spec office project in Westway Park. Natco Group Inc. has signed a 10-year prelease for the $30-million building.

The DNA Westway Park just broke ground at the corner of Equity Drive and Beltway 8. “We’d conceived this as a spec building, but they showed up mid-stream here and needed the space,” says Peter Dienna, CEO and president of Dienna Nelson Augustine Co. of Houston. It will deliver in November 2007.

The lease’s payout is being kept confidential, but the quoted rate is $16.50 net. Natco was represented by Jim Bailey and Trey Strake with Cushman & Wakefield of Texas Inc. in Houston. The firm is now located at 2950 N. Loop West.

Dienna says other there are several “credit-quality users” inquiring about the space, including some that want the balance of the DNA Westway Park building. “Our expectation is that the building will be 100% leased before its completion,” he tells GlobeSt.com. Locally based Kirksey Architecture is the designer of record.

Dienna Nelson recently bought the nine-acre site from locally based Wolff Cos., which is developing the 150-acre Westway Park. The park, located at the intersection of Sam Houston Tollway and Clay Road, is down to just a 13.5-acre tract, according to David W. Hightower, Wolff’s executive vice president. A two-acre site is under contract.

Hightower says the unsold land could be used for a Wolff-developed mixed-use project or built out with another office building. “We’re talking to a number of people about it,” he says. “We’ll probably decide sometime after the first of the year what we’ll do with it.”