Natural Gas Firm Takes 257,000-SF Office Space

PITTSBURGH-Natural gas company Equitable Resources is leasing 257,000 sf at 625 Liberty Ave. here in a move that comes with nearly $3 million of incentives from the commonwealth’s Department of Community and Economic Development. In a release, the company says it has outgrown its current 150,000-sf space at 225 North Shore Dr. Patrick Greene, SVP with CB Richard Ellis’s Pittsburgh office, tells GlobeSt.com the move will bring occupancy at the 32-story, 623,000-sf office tower to 97%, up from about 60% at present.

Greene says he is unable to discuss terms of the lease; however, CBRE’s website lists a rate of $24 per sf for 625 Liberty. The release from Equitable says the company will relocate its production and midstream business units to 625 Liberty, while maintaining its Equitable Gas Co. gas subsidiary, a utility company, at 225 North Shore. According to a release from DCED, the move, scheduled to take place during the spring and summer of 2009, will keep 772 jobs in Pittsburgh and create 354 new ones.

“Although we are anticipating a good bit of growth outside of Pennsylvania, we’re happy to be keeping our corporate headquarters in Pittsburgh,” says Murry Gerber, Equitable’s chairman and CEO, in a prepared statement. “The unregulated gas drilling and transportation segments of our business have been driving our development.”