DRA Advisors JV Buys Downtown Austin Tower

823 Congress. Image courtesy of Newmark

A joint venture between DRA Advisors LLC and Pillar Commercial has acquired 823 Congress, an office property totaling 190,254 square feet in Austin’s CBD. The seller was New York-based Brickman, according to CommercialEdge data.

Newmark Vice Chairmen Chris Murphy, Robert Hill and Gary Carr as well as Director Chase Tagen represented Brickman in the transaction, which marks Pillar’s first acquisition in metro Austin through its discretionary vehicle dubbed Pillar Real Estate Fund I.

In January, the same team worked on behalf of Pillar in the purchase of One Preston Centre, a 76,741-square-foot office building in Dallas. Meanwhile, another Newmark team including Vice Chairman David Milestone, Senior Managing Director Brett Green and Director Josh Francis secured acquisition financing for the new owners.

A multi-tenant office building in downtown Austin

Located on less than an acre at 823 Congress Ave., the property also includes a six-story parking structure at 900 Brazos St. as well as 10,000 square feet of retail space. The 16-story office building offers floorplates ranging between 11,240 and 12,049 square feet, along with 207 parking spaces at a ratio of 1.21 spaces per 1,000 square feet.

Brickman upgraded the 1970-built property by investing $15 million in capital improvements, which added a new conference room, a tenant lounge, as well as a fitness center equipped with showers, among other amenities.

The partnership plans to continue repositioning the asset, which was 71 percent leased at the time of the sale. The tenant roster includes a wide variety of companies, such as Industrious, Texas Pharmacy Business Council and Hillco Partners, CommercialEdge data shows. As of March, the average office vacancy rate across the Austin market increased by 50 basis points month-over-month, reaching 15.9 percent, on par with the national average, according to the same data provider.

The office building is a few blocks away from the Texas Capitol and Waterloo Park. Recently, Lincoln Property Co. teamed up with Phoenix Property Co. and DivcoWest to develop The Republic, an office tower totaling 833,000 square feet less than a mile away. The Austin metro continues to lead the nation for office construction activity relative to total stock. Based on CommercialEdge data, as of March, more than 10 million square feet of office projects were under construction, representing 11.5 percent of overall inventory.