DALLAS — Baker Botts LP, an international law firm, has renewed its 104,179-square-foot lease at Trammell Crow Center, a 50-story, 1.1 million-square-foot office tower located at 2001 Ross Ave. in downtown Dallas. Ramsey March, Sara Terry and Scott Sowanick of Stream Realty Partners represented the landlord, Trammell Crow Co., in the negotiations. Phil Puckett and Harlan Davis of CBRE represented Baker Botts.
SPRING, TEXAS — Woodbine Development Corp., CDC Houston and USAA Real Estate have broken ground on a 337-room Marriott CityPlace hotel in Spring, a northern suburb of Houston. The 10-story hotel will anchor the eastern end of CityPlace, a 60-acre mixed-use development within the master-planned community of Springwoods Village. Amenities of the hotel, which is set to open in November 2018, include a pool with a bar, two ballrooms and an outdoor event area.
AMARILLO, PLAINVIEW AND LUBBOCK, TEXAS — Marcus & Millichap has arranged the sale of a nine-property portfolio of Extra Space Storage facilities located in Amarillo, Plainview and Lubbock. The 644,795-square-foot portfolio encompasses 1,237 climate-controlled units, 3,527 non-climate-controlled units and 18 offices. Brett Hatcher and Charles LeClaire of Marcus & Millichap represented the seller, a Texas-based limited liability company, and procured the buyer, also a limited liability company.
PORTER, TEXAS — Q10 Kinghorn, Driver, Hough & Co. (Q10 KDH) has arranged $2 million in financing for Gilbert House Apartments, a 35,900-square-foot multifamily complex in Porter, a city roughly 25 miles north of Houston. Larry Peters of Q10 KDH arranged the 10-year loan, which has a 30-year amortization schedule. The undisclosed borrower recently upgraded unit interiors at the 33-unit property, which is located at 24595 Gilbert Drive.
Tumbling rents, landlord concessions and weakening levels of absorption have defined Houston’s multifamily market for much of the duration of the oil bust that spanned from late 2014 to mid-2016, but the multifamily market is now on the mend, says a third-party multifamily data analyst. Bruce McClenny, president of Apartment Data Services, which tracks the vital signs of nearly 3,000 multifamily properties nationwide, believes Houston’s multifamily market is about nine months past the rock-bottom point. As the opening speaker at the Interface Houston Multifamily Conference before 170 industry professionals on Tuesday, March 28, McLenny explained why he believes that a turnaround, albeit a slow one, has already begun. “The first six months of 2016 was the bottom, economically,” McLenny said during the conference, which was held March 28 at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Houston’s Galleria neighborhood. “Things have gotten better from that moment on. There’s absorption out there. Through the first two months of this year, we had more than 1,900 units absorbed.” In 2016, submarkets on the city’s south and east sides — Pearland West, Baytown, Pasadena, Galveston — fared markedly better than submarkets in other parts of town, according to McLenny. All four of these submarkets attained positive …
IRVING, TEXAS — Preston Hollow Capital, a Dallas-based finance firm, has arranged $115 million in financing for the construction of Westin Irving Convention Center Hotel, a 12-story, 350-room hotel development in Irving. The property will offer 16,000 square feet of ballroom and meeting space, restaurant and retail facilities and a parking garage. Texas-based architecture firm BOKA Powell designed the hotel, which will be situated on a 17-acre tract adjacent to the Irving Convention Center at Las Colinas. Austin Commercial LP is general contractor on the project, which is slated for an early 2018 opening.
SAN ANTONIO — Weston Urban, KDC and TRT Holdings Inc. have broken ground on Frost Tower, a 460,000-square-foot, Class A office property on Houston Street in downtown San Antonio. The 23-story building will consist of 430,000 square feet of office space, a 400,000-square-foot wraparound parking facility, 20,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and 10,000 square feet of tenant amenity space, which includes a lounge and a fitness center. Clark Construction Group LLC is the general contractor for the project, which is slated for a 2019 completion.
THE COLONY, TEXAS — Nebraska Furniture Mart, a division of Berkshire Hathaway, has broken ground on a 100-acre lifestyle retail center that is part of Grandscape, a 433-acre, mixed-use development located along the Sam Rayburn Tollway in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro of The Colony. Upon completion, Grandscape will span 3.9 million square feet of retail, multifamily and hospitality space, with an outdoor amphitheater and a convention center. Two restaurants, Thirsty Lion Gastropub and Twigs Bistro & Martini Bar, have committed to locations at the property, with openings scheduled for 2018 and 2019, respectively.
HOUSTON — CBRE has negotiated a 159,785-square-foot industrial lease on behalf of McLane Group International LP, a global logistics firm, at Interstate Commerce Center in north Houston. Located at 1902 Cypress Station Drive on Houston’s north side, the property consists of about 284,000 square feet of industrial space. Patrick Rollins of CBRE represented McLane Group in the transaction. Stream Realty represented the landlord, Hillwood Investment Properties.
BRYAN, TEXAS — William Cole Cos. has completed development of The Stella, a 176-key hotel in Bryan, a city near Texas A&M University in College Station. Located at 4100 Lake Atlas Drive, the property is part of ATLAS, a master-planned development approximately two miles from the school’s campus. Hotel amenities include suites with wraparound balconies, minibars in every room, 20,000 square feet of event and meeting space and an on-site restaurant. The hotel will open April 6.
