CBRE to Handle Leasing, Management for Five Buildings in Houston Center

February 7, 2012
By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

J.P. Morgan Asset Management has turned over to CBRE Group Inc. the property management and leasing of five buildings totaling 4.2 MSF in the Houston Center complex on the east side of downtown Houston, CBRE announced yesterday. J.P. Morgan acted on behalf of institutional investors it advises. The five buildings are Class A office buildings 1 Houston Center, 2 Houston Center, Fulbright Tower and 4 Houston Center, as well as retail-based The Shops at Houston Center.

Built between 1974 and 1984, Houston Center helped revitalize the east side downtown area, eventually encouraging the development of other large-scale buildings such as Minute Maid Park, Toyota Center, Discovery Park, Hilton Americas Hotel and Hess Tower.

CBRE provided Commercial Property Executive with additional particulars on the individual buildings. One Houston Center/LyondellBasell Tower, located at 1221 McKinney St., spans 1.1 million square feet across 46 stories. It was built in 1978 and is 93.9 percent leased. The building was renamed LyondellBasell Tower late last month after a lease extension by the Dutch-headquartered multinational chemical company.

Two Houston Center, located at 909 Fannin St., spans just more than 1 million square feet across 40 stories. It was built in 1974 and is 91.7 percent leased. Fulbright Tower — formerly Three Houston Center — is located at 1301 McKinney St. and spans 1.25 million square feet across 51 stories. It was built in 1982 and is 86.8 percent leased. The named tenant is Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P., one of the 50 largest law firms in the country. The final office building, Four Houston Center, is located at 1221 Lamar Ave. and spans 674,000 square feet across 16 stories. It was built in 1983 and is 91.5 percent leased.

The retail component, The Shops at Houston Center — formerly known as Park Shops — is located at 1200 McKinney St. It spans 200,000 square feet. The Shops was built in 1982 and heavily renovated in 2003; it now stands at 80.4 percent leased. As is typical of downtown, service-center retail, it has no large anchors, instead mostly convenience and lunch-oriented tenants.

According to just-released figures from the Greater Houston Partnership, the city led Texas in job growth last year, accounting for one of every three jobs created in the state. The 10-county Houston area added 75,800 jobs, a 3.0 percent increase in metro-area employment over the previous year.