"It was time for new space, time for a change," says Jon Silberman of NAI Houston, who represented the firm along with NAI's Steve Dome. The firm, whose lease expires March 2005, will move into Three Allen Center at 333 Clay St. in mid-January.
"Allen Center was the most competitive option," Silberman tells GlobeSt.com. The tower's asking rate is $22 per sf to $23 per sf, but he says that "they're coming off that price." The building owner, TrizecHahn Colony Square GP LLC, was represented by Paul Frazier of Chicago-based Trizec Properties.
Silberman says the law firm wanted to take advantage of the favorable leasing environment that exists in downtown Houston. "They wanted to upgrade from class B space," he says.
Built in 1980, the 1.2-million-sf Three Allen Center is a 52-story, class A tower in the CBD. It is part of a three-building complex that includes One Allen Center and Two Allen Center. Currently, Three Allen Center is 84% leased while the entire complex is 90% leased.
"The market is very competitive right now with vacancy rates a bit over 20%," Frazier says. "What we've had to do as a company is go toe to toe with our competition to attract new tenants and the Hughes, Watters deal was just one of those deals." He points out that Trizec, and the Allen Center Complex in particular, was the most notable victim of Enron Corp.'s bankruptcy when the defunct company rejected about 700,000 sf.
According to Frazier, Hughes, Watters & Askanase plans to significantly renovate the office space. "Before it was built out for an oil company," he says, "so the finishes aren't conducive to a law firm. And, they need to reconfigure the space as well."
Hughes, Watters & Askanase will join several other small and mid-size law firms in the Allen Center Complex, Frazier says. Thompson & Knight LLP, for example, occupies three and a half floors in Three Allen Center.
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