1M SF Plus of High-End Office Ready to Go

DALLAS-With office leasing overall on an upswing, owners of two premier buildings in the Greater Dallas metro are rolling red carpets for the brokerage community to win their fair share of the deals. One is a $3.5-million re-branding of a well-known CBD high rise and the other is the first class AA to open in the far northern tier–in all, 1.2 million sf of upper-end office space.

In the CBD, IPC US REIT has unveiled 2100 Ross Ave., formerly San Jacinto Tower. A new look, new address and new positioning in the Downtown’s Arts District has taken nearly 18 months of work for the Canadian IPC, the majority owner to a JV with locally based PNL Cos. Trammell Crow Co., which leases and manages the asset, was project’s construction manager. “It’s not the old 2121 San Jacinto; it’s the new 2100 Ross Ave.,” emphasizes Douglas W. Brewer, IPC’s regional vice president. “We’ve come a long way in accomplishing a change in the brokerage community’s mind about the building.”

The JV started mapping out the 843,728-sf repositioning in January 2005 when it bought the 70%-leased building. Occupancy is now 77%. Brewer tells GlobeSt.com that “it’s still a little early” to determine how much of an impact the renovation will have on leasing. “The market is still relatively soft,” he adds, “but we’re guardedly confident that we’ll do a fair amount of leasing in the next 12 months.”

The brokers’ parties are over; the hard leasing drive is under way at 2100 Ross, with its class A space on the market at $17.50 per sf plus electric. The largest contiguous block in the 33-story high rise is 110,000 sf on floors 24, 25, 26 and 27 and two more full floors on six and 12.

The reintroduction has started with a full-floor lease by Gordon & Rees LLP, which took the 28th floor, 18,743 sf, in its third expansion since moving into 5,000 sf just two months ago. The law firm’s new office is being built out now. The law firm of Kessler Collins recently moved into 13,402 sf on the seventh floor.

Part of the new look is a feature wall by Paul Deeb’s Vox Environmental Design firm. Artistic additions like the 30-foot frosted-glass kinetic art piece proved to be the most challenging and time consuming, according to Brewer. Staffelbach Design Associates of Dallas led the team for the building’s redesign.

In far north Dallas, Granite Properties has opened doors on the 369,000-sf Granite Park Three. The 14-story, class AA spec building, with a 25,000-sf retail component, is hitting the market at 30% occupancy.

“We’ve incorporated architectural style and function while raising new standards for the market in the Plano-Legacy-Frisco area,” Greg Fuller, Granite’s managing director in Dallas, says in a press release. The opening pushes Granite Park to one million sf of office space, with its newest product coming on line at $25.75 per sf plus electricity.

Granite Park Three’s interior highlights include blown glass-and-steel hanging light fixtures by Tim deJong of Wimberley Glass Works Inc. in Wimberley, TX and Texas Hill Country artist Jimmy Harwell. BOKA Powell was Granite Park Three’s architect; Austin Commercial, the general contractor.