Columbia Property Trust Exits Houston

By Anca Gagiuc

5 Houston Center

Houston—Columbia Property Trust Inc. of Atlanta sold its Houston portfolio to San Francisco-based Spear Street Capital for $272 million in gross proceeds. Columbia’s portfolio consisted of three office buildings encompassing 1.2 million square feet. The stack includes:

5 Houston Center—the 27-story, 581,000-square-foot office tower is located at 1401 McKinney St. in downtown Houston. Columbia owned and managed the property since 2005. Ernst & Young is the majority tenant.

Energy Center I—the 332,000-square-foot asset at 585 N Dairy Ashford Road along Interstate 10 in the Energy Corridor was acquired by Columbia in 2010. Amec Foster Wheeler occupies the building.

515 Post Oak Blvd.—the 12-story, 274,000-square-foot located in Houston’s Galleria submarket was acquired by Columbia in 2004 and subjected to extensive renovations in 2013. NetIQ Corp. and Rockwater Energy Solutions are among the tenants.

“While our Houston properties have been strong performers over the years, we have shifted our focus to select high-barrier markets as we continue to position Columbia as a top-performing office REIT,” Nelson Mills, president & CEO of Columbia Property Trust, said in prepared remarks. “We had solid demand from potential buyers for this portfolio, and this was a good opportunity to accelerate our core market strategy. With $932.5 million in disposition proceeds raised over the past year, we have made tremendous progress in unlocking the overall value of our portfolio as we redeploy capital into assets that meet our investment criteria, located in our target markets.”