Fountain Place Tenant Re-Ups, Expands With Full-Floor Lease

DALLAS-After shopping the market for roughly 10 months, the Crouch & Ramey law firm has re-upped and expanded a trophy lease in Fountain Place. The full-floor lease for the six-year tenant will drive a relocation within the 60-story downtown landmark.

Kirby White, leasing director for the Fort Worth-based Crescent Real Estate Equities Co., tells GlobeSt.com that the firm will move before September from 14,122 sf on the 23rd story to the 18,622-sf 36th floor of the 1.2-million-sf high-rise at 1445 Ross Ave. White says the building owner, Crescent Fountain Place LP, got the floor back last month in accordance with last year’s agreement with the Jenkins & Gilchrist law firm, which still occupies nine floors of the 94.1%-leased trophy.

Crouch & Ramey’s broker, William McClung with Cushman & Wakefield of Texas Inc., started searching in fall 2004 for expansion space. The firm’s existing lease expires at the end of this year. “We were in fairly serious talks last fall,” White says, “but it took awhile to work out the details.” The freshly inked deal has a four-year term, he says.

With the 36th floor staying tied to a law firm, finish-out will be minimal, according to White. “The space fits well for their needs,” he says.

White has four more deals in the hopper to fill another 25,000 sf in the trophy and has bed down all significant rolls for this year. “It’s been a pretty good spring and summer so far,” he says. The stepped-up activity is translating into finished deals hitting closer to the building’s top quoted rent of $26.50 per sf. “The average rate we’ve gotten in the last few months is $25 per sf plus electric,” he says.