HOUSTON-One Oak Park, a new six-story, class A office building in the Westchase submarket has increased its occupancy from 37 to 85% by signing 70,902 square feet of new tenants. The activity illustrates the marketwide trend in class A office leasing, according to Michael Anderson of Colvill Office Properties, leasing agent for the building.
Anderson tells GlobeSt.com that One Oak Park delivered in April 2009, and its lease up is right on schedule, despite the recession that has gripped the country for the past three years. “Demand for class A space across the city has been strong,” he says. “There is a real flight to quality that is going on.”
The marketwide vacancy rate for class A office space was just 14% at the end of the fourth quarter 2010, according to Grubb & Ellis Co.’s most recent market report. In comparison, the class B office vacancy rate was 18.8%, and the class C office vacancy rate was 16.2% for the same period.
The report notes that the quarterly space gain was largely attributed to class A properties recording a solid 724,157 square feet of positive absorption. On the other hand, class B and C properties posted 136,126 and 36,376 square feet of negative net absorption during the survey period.
The leasing activity in the class A market has been driven primarily by companies wanting to take advantage of favorable lease rates. However, Anderson has noted that many companies are looking to upgrade their image to make them more attractive to potential employees as the job market become more competitive and have relocated to class A building such as One Oak Park from class B buildings.
KBM Group, for example, inked a lease for 27,522 square feet at One Oak Park, and Infosys Technologies leased 12,172 square feet at the building, which is located at 6002 Rogerdale. Both companies moved from class B buildings, Anderson says.
Additional new tenants at One Oak Park include: GBH CPAs PC; Air Energi; Mossman Kumar & Tyler; Duncan Oil Inc.; and Volt Information Sciences.
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free ALM Digital Reader.
Once you are an ALM Digital Member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking commercial real estate news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical coverage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
*May exclude premium content© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
