AUSTIN-Congress at Fourth, the 525,000-sf Cousins Properties Inc. building, has signed its fourth and, so far, largest tenant, the Austin-based Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody law firm. It is the third law firm to reserve space in the office tower and it continues the 2002 trend in Austin of lawyers abandoning older buildings for brand-new ones.
Graves Dougherty's move will be short in terms of distance but long in years. It will exit the 251,000-sf Bank of America building at 515 Congress, which was built in 1975. The firm's new residence is a block south on the northeast corner of Congress Avenue and Fourth Street.
At 48,000 sf, the Graves Dougherty lease is the biggest at Congress at Fourth and boosts the building's pre-opening occupancy to 27% or 144,000 sf. The lease term is 15 years.
Michael Brown, a Cousins leasing associate, represented Cousins. Pat Herron and Carl Williams, principals of Herron Williams, acted for Graves Dougherty.
The other Congress at Fourth tenants-to-be are the law firms Winstead Sechrest & Minick and Jenkens & Gilchrist and the construction firm, Constructors and Associates. Hendricks said several other leases should be announced in a few weeks, but did not give details.
Hendricks tells GlobeSt.com that the building should be ready for occupancy by November. “It takes a while to get them started,” he says. “But then they get a rhythm going.” Glass and metal work should begin next month. The 33-story Congress at Fourth is to include a plaza, restaurant, ground-level retail and a 1,500-space parking garage.
At a time when many new leases bring little or no net absorption as companies move from one building to another for lower rent or better space, law firms seem to be leading the trend. The other new downtown tower, 300 West Sixth, has the Clark Thomas Winters and Newton, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld and McKool Smith law firms as tenants. The first two moved from other CBD buildings; McKool is new to Austin. The Vinson & Elkins firm left the CBD for the new Terrace VII building in the southwest submarket. Fulbright and Jaworski, another large firm, stayed on at One American Center, inking a 10-year renewal.
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