Energy Firm Expands Class A Office Lease

PLANO, TX-With roughly nine months invested into its lease, Petrohawk Energy Corp. has tacked on nearly 50% more to its Preston Park Financial Center office. The firm’s class A lease now exceeds 9,100 sf.

“Their presence to Dallas happened overnight because they bought an oil and gas company in the Plano area,” says Lee Wagner, a vice president with Grubb & Ellis Co. in Dallas. He and Sam Hocker, a senior vice president and member of Grubb’s Presidents Council, worked out a 3,100-sf expansion on the third floor of the West Tower at 4975 Preston Park Rd. with tenant rep, J.J. Leonard of Dallas-based Capstar Commercial Real Estate Services.

Hocker says the expansion was simply blended into last summer’s five-year lease. The Houston-based Petrohawk exercised a right of first refusal on abutting space to spark the talks, ending in a deal that turns over keys by the end of this month. The deal set up a graceful exit for a neighboring tenant who wanted to vacate sublease space, Hocker explains.

The expansion, though, is coming just as the free rent is burning off the original pact, according to the brokers. They say the underlying perk is that negotiations began during the 359,923-sf complex’s year-end sale to Colony Realty Advisors of Boston, but didn’t wrap up until recently. Direct space is quoted at $21 per sf plus electric.