DALLAS-One of the downtown’s landmark properties has added five new tenants to its roster. Fountain Place, a 1.2 million-square-foot office tower owned by Crescent Real Estate Holdings, inked 41,280 square feet in new deals with three financial institutions, a private investment firm and a land management and development group.
Commerce Street Capital and Mercury Financial Group are both are relocating within downtown, while Fifth Third Bank and the land management and development company are moving from the nearby Uptown submarket. Meanwhile, Freight Shuttle International has chosen downtown Dallas for its company headquarters.
With the new leases, the 60-story Fountain Place is 84% occupied compared to 81% a year ago, according to Kirby White, director of leasing for Crescent. “Usually, you only hear about firms leaving the downtown core and moving to Uptown or another suburban market,” he tells GlobeSt.com. “But there is an exchange – a flow of tenants moving into downtown from other submarkets in smaller deals that you don’t hear a lot about, yet they’re important and contribute to absorption.”
White negotiated with Commerce Street Capital, a local banking consulting and investment firm headquartered here, for six months. The firm, which has a second office in Atlanta, currently occupies space in 1700 Pacific and will move to Fountain Place this month, taking 22,647 square feet. John Amend and B.D. Amend of The Amend Group represented Commerce Street Capital.
Mercury Financial Group, a local wealth advisory firm that consults with financial advisors nationwide, will relocate from Chase Tower to Fountain Place this month to occupy 8,086 square feet. White spent four months negotiating with Grant Henson of RockCap Interests, who represented Mercury Financial Group.
Fifth Third Bank, a Fortune 500 diversified financial services company based out of Cincinnati, recently relocated its Structured Finance Group from the Uptown submarket to Fountain Place, leasing 5,070 square feet. White represented Crescent, while Dolores Wood-Euart with CB Richard Ellis represented Fifth Third Bank.
"We continue to notice the increased activity of financial advisory firms and institutions who want to initiate or maintain a strong foothold in downtown Dallas," White says. “It’s an interesting trend. A lot of financial firms consider a Ross Avenue address to be very much like Uptown because it has all the access of Uptown, coupled with the prestige of an iconic downtown building.”
Freight Shuttle International, a private investment group behind the technologically advanced electric-powered Universal Freight Shuttle system conceived in 1999 by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University, signed a lease at Fountain Place for 2,493 square feet. Though some of the partners live in California, it was important to the company to make Dallas their headquarters' location, according to White.
The international land management and development management company relocated from Uptown to Fountain Place, taking 3,084 square feet. White negotiated the transaction on behalf of Crescent.
“It’s nice to have new deals other than just expansions,” White points out. “Those are harder ones to close because it’s difficult to convince someone to pack up and move. You have to make it worth their while.”
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