Steve West, regional director of leasing for Insignia/ESG Inc., tells GlobeSt.com the company has spent the last five years in smaller quarters on the 18th floor. Staubach has renewed the lease for another seven years and expanded the operation, moving the office into the top floor and taking all of the space.
West negotiated the deal for building owner, Times Square Real Estate Investors; Staubach used in-house broker Dan Bellow.
West says the 481,222 rentable sf, pre-cast and glass building is 90% occupied. Majortenants include Insignia/ESG, EMC Corp. and South Trust Bank. Insignia/ESG has a staff of 75 people in its Houston office and manages the Austin office of 45 to 50 people, says West.
According to Insignia, the Uptown-Galleria is the 15th largest business district in the US and the second largest in Houston. While West concedes that there is a lot of unabsorbed class A space, he expects the availability of good quality space at a cheaper price than the CBD will help with absorption rates. West says the high parking and upper $20s per sf rents in the CBD may drive some companies to the significantly reduced parking costs and low to mid $20s per sf rents in the Uptown-Galleria.
"There is an excellent opportunity for class-A tenants here," says West, who estimates the submarket has in excess of 20 million sf of space. He attributes the submarket's current softness to large move-outs such as Jacobs Engineering and new construction such as the newly renovated Park Towers North and South. West believes that the submarket will begin to catch up with the unused space by year's end and early 2002.
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