SCHERTZ, TEXAS — CBRE has negotiated a 109,271-square-foot industrial lease at 6417 Tri-County Parkway in Schertz, a northeastern suburb of San Antonio. Josh Aguilar of CBRE represented the landlord, Prologis, in the lease negotiations. Omar Nasser of AQUILA Commercial represented the tenant, women’s apparel provider J.J.’s Mae Inc.
DALLAS — Keller Williams Realty — North Dallas has signed a 24,971-square-foot office lease at 18333 Preston Road for its new headquarters in the metroplex. Renee Efimoff of SCM Real Estate Services represented Keller Williams in the lease negotiations. Trevor Franke and Andrew Scudder of JLL represented the landlord, Preston North Partners LLC. The move-in is scheduled for late July.
HOUSTON — Archway Properties has broken ground on a 22,016-square-foot build-to-suit retail project in Houston for Northern Tool + Equipment. The building will be situated on a freeway-fronting pad site within the 111-acre Park Air 59 mixed-use development on the city’s northeastern side. The store will be the Minnesota-based retailer’s eighth in Houston and is expected to open in the first quarter of 2021.
HOUSTON — A report issued last week by The University of Houston and the Texas Restaurant Association found that among a survey of 340 Texas bar and restaurant owners, 19 percent had been forced to permanently close one or more of their venues in response to COVID-19. The survey, which was conducted between April 8 and April 22 prior to the state’s easing of social distancing guidelines, queried 189 owners of a single restaurant and 151 owners of multiple restaurants accounting for more than 1,300 establishments between them. In addition, 80 percent of respondents indicated that they had been forced to lay off employees between March 19 and April 6, with roughly half of those respondents laying off the majorities of their staffs. Texas restaurants are currently at liberty to resume dine-in services at fractions of their original capacities. The Texas Restaurant Association is an industry advocacy organization for the state’s $52 billion foodservice industry, which spans more than 43,000 restaurants and employs more than 1.2 million people.
DALLAS — Ashford Hospitality Trust (NYSE: AHT) announced this weekend that it will return all funds from loans it received from the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), citing recently changed rules that would have put the Dallas-based company at compliance risk. Ashford, whose portfolio includes some 120 U.S. hotels totaling nearly 25,000 rooms, has also made a change in leadership, replacing CEO Douglas Kessler with J. Robison Hays III as the company’s new president and top executive effective May 14. According to The Dallas Morning News (DMN), Ashford originally applied for $126 million in PPP loans, seeking relief for each hotel with 500 or fewer employees. Per the DMN, the company originally said that it had laid off or furloughed 90 percent of its workforce and would be using the funds to help get those employees back to work. The PPP was established as part of the CARES Act to provide relief to owner-operators amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS — CBRE has negotiated a 66,468-square-foot industrial lease for locally based logistics firm Fiesta Warehousing & Distribution Co. in San Antonio. Josh Aguilar of CBRE represented the tenant, which is expanding into a larger space at 5050 Stout Drive, in the lease negotiations. Rob Burlingame, also with CBRE, represented the landlord, Prologis.
HOUSTON — NewQuest Properties has arranged the sale of Chimney Rock Bellaire Shopping Center, a 23,217-square-foot retail center in southwest Houston. The property was developed in phases in 1990 and 2012 and was 99 percent leased at the time of sale to tenants such as The Mays School, Green Restaurant and Speedy Cash. Kelley Workman of NewQuest represented the seller, F6 Properties, in the transaction. Tony Luk of LYT Realty Inc. represented the buyer, JCV Capital Inc.
HALTOM CITY, TEXAS — Marcus & Millichap has brokered the sale of a 16,360-square-foot industrial building located at 2337 Minnis Drive in Haltom City, located northeast of downtown Fort Worth. Adam Abushagur and Cliff Zimmerman of Marcus & Millichap represented the seller, a private investor, and procured a limited liability company as the buyer. Both parties requested anonymity.
ARLINGTON, TEXAS — Houston-based Gordon Partners has completed the remodeling of Green Oaks Plaza, a 100,000-square-foot shopping center located at the junction of Interstate 20 and Little Road in Arlington. Movie Tavern and Sprouts Farmers Market anchor the property. Capital improvements included heightening the facades, replacing tenant signage, upgrading landscaping and adding two additional pylon signs. Gordon Partners acquired the asset in 2018 at 82 percent occupancy and has executed leases that will bring occupancy above 95 percent. The company also plans to develop a 2,300-square-foot outparcel building with a drive-thru that is expected to be complete in the fourth quarter.
SAN ANTONIO — The San Antonio office market closed the first quarter of 2020 with a 10.2 percent vacancy rate, up 50 basis points on a quarter-over-quarter basis and up 60 basis points on a year-over-year basis, according to a new report from NAI Partners. The firm tracks the performances of commercial real estate markets in Houston, Austin and San Antonio. The vacancy rate for Class A properties in San Antonio was 12 percent, compared to 10.2 percent for Class B assets. However, the majority of the market’s 209,000 square feet of negative net absorption in the first quarter came from Class B buildings. Average asking rents grew by about 4 percent between the first quarters of 2019 and 2020, and there is about 1.5 million square feet of office space under construction in the San Antonio metro area.