Ken Stockton of NorthMarq Capital Inc., which secured the project's financing, tells GlobeSt.com that the project had taken so long to come to fruition because lenders have been gun shy about spec development in Houston as a result of the mid-1980s energy crisis. He says "there is always a Houston factor to overcome" when going after financing deals for city developers. "Everyone is afraid Houston will become overbuilt," he says.
Financing is coming from NorthMarq Capital, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bank of America, which is providing construction financing. Stockton and associate Rene Joubert put together the deal, but it has taken significant pre-leasing to get to the ground-breaking stage. The building is now 70% leased. Other tenants are Century Development and Cockrell Interests.
Main/Lamar Partnership LP and Century Developments own the building, with Century handling office-leasing duties. Boyd Page & Associates has snagged the retail-leasing pact. Miner-Dederick Constructors Inc. is the general contractor and Gensler & Associates, the architect.
Sandy Weiner of Vinson & Elkins represented Main/Lamar in the Reliant lease transaction. Gerry Trione of Trione & Gordon and Wade Wilden of Baker Botts acted on Reliant's behalf. Melvin Dow of Dow, Cogburn & Friedman serves as lead counsel for the building owners and Stewart Robinson of Conine Robinson is the project's marketing consultant.
Century Development also is building Houston's Hobby Center for the Performing Arts and has 13 other projects under development nationwide. To date, Houston-based Century has developed more than 40 million sf of office buildings, hospitals, hotels and student housing in the US.
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