Virgil Hydes, a leasing manager with Lincoln Property Co.'s local office, tells GlobeSt.com that Encysive Pharmaceuticals signed a 36-month pact for the seventh and eighth floors at 4848 Loop Central Dr. "With their latest drug coming online, they decided that they wanted to do the sales and marketing in house rather than outsource it so they needed more space," he says. "Now they're thinking about marketing the drug internationally and are considering taking more space. This is a huge expansion for them."

Hydes says the company, which has several lab facilities in the Texas Medical Center, wanted to keep its headquarters in the same area. "They were very location driven," he explains, adding he specifically targeted it as a prospective tenant for Loop Central Two. He says he brokered the firm's 15,000-sf lease at 6700 W. Loop South, knew it was expiring and also knew it would need expansion space.

Encysive Pharmaceuticals is now the second-largest tenant in Loop Central Two, a 10-story, 197,603-sf office building with an $18.50 per sf quoted rate. The lead tenant is Universal Ensco Inc., a local firm occupying 72,870 sf. The latest deal pushes occupancy to 63%, according to Hydes, who represented the building owner, W9/LWS II Real Estate LP, led by Dallas-based Lincoln Property Co. and Whitehall, the real estate arm of Goldman Sachs.