DALLAS — Newmark has brokered the sale of Plaza of the Americas, a 1.2 million-square-foot office and retail asset located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas. The sales price was not disclosed, but the brokerage states that the transaction marks the largest office sale in Dallas so far this year. New York-based Shelbourne Global Solutions was the buyer, according to The Dallas Morning News.
Located at 600 and 700 N. Pearl St., Plaza of the Americas comprises two 25-story office towers connected by a glass atrium. There are 120,000 square feet of retail and dining spaces on the first and second floors as well as an eight-story parking garage.
Constructed in 1980, the buildings have undergone $26 million in capital improvements over the last decade. Recent renovations to the atrium replaced an under-utilized ice-skating rink with an urban garden area equipped with water features, food pavilions and retail shops. The new ownership plans to start a multi-million-dollar renovation later this year.
Plaza of the Americas is situated adjacent to DART Pearl Street Station. The property is within walking distance of Klyde Warren Park, the 400-room Dallas Marriott Downtown hotel and several entertainment options such as the Dallas Museum of Art, Nasher Sculpture Center, Meyerson Symphony Center and AT&T Performing Arts Center.
The sale comes on the heels of Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. signing a lease for 163,005 square feet at the property. The lease marks one of the five largest office leases signed in downtown Dallas in the past decade, according to Newmark.
Dallas-Fort Worth office-using employment reached an all-time historical high as of the end of May 2023, according to Newmark. The metroplex reported 1.26 million office workers, an increase of 67.5 percent compared with 2010 and an increase of 22 percent compared with 2019 employment levels.
Chris Murphy, Robert Hill and Gary Carr of Newmark represented the sellers, M-M Properties Inc. and an institutional investor. The team also arranged acquisition financing on behalf of the buyer.
M-M Properties, which maintains an office within Plaza of the Americas, is a privately held real estate firm with a portfolio of assets that has included 38 million square feet of office projects and 18,000 multifamily units with a cumulative transaction volume in excess of $10 billion.
Shelbourne owns and manages more than 8 million square feet of commercial real estate totaling over $1 billion.
— Kristin Harlow