HOUSTON – (Realty News Report) – McGuireWoods, an international law firm, has signed a full-floor lease in Texas Tower, the 47-story downtown tower being developed by Hines and Ivanhoé Cambridge.
The 30,000-square-foot lease for the 24th floor ranks among the largest downtown Houston leases this year, at a time when the office market has struggled in the post‑COVID era.
“As we welcome our tenants back to the office, we continue to listen to their post-pandemic needs. Experiential, fit-for-purpose real estate is in demand more than ever as tenants look to cultivate collaboration, culture, and brand,” said John Mooz, Senior Managing Director at Hines. “We believe this demand for experiential real estate is exemplified by McGuireWoods signing the first new full-floor lease since the start of the year in the Houston Central Business District. We are pleased to welcome the firm to Texas Tower.”
The law firm will relocate to Texas Tower in June 2022 after signing an 11-year lease. McGuireWoods currently occupies space in the JPMorgan Chase Tower in downtown Houston.
McGuireWoods was represented in lease negotiations by Bob Parsley, Darren Gowell and Taylor Wright of Colliers. Michael Anderson of Cushman & Wakefield represented Hines and Ivanhoé Cambridge, the building’s developers and owners. With this lease, Texas Tower is now 42 percent leased.
Hines has also leased 180,000 square feet in the new building for its global headquarters; the company currently maintains offices in Williams Tower near the Galleria.
Scheduled for completion in the fourth quarter of this year, Texas Tower is a Class AA office development designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli. The building aims to set a new standard for downtown Houston office space and is being built to meet high sustainability and technology benchmarks, including LEED Platinum, WiredScore and WELL Building Standards.
“McGuireWoods considered several downtown towers,” said Bob Parsley of Colliers. “They reviewed all the Class A buildings in the Central Business District and decided that Texas Tower offered the most efficient, modern new building in the CBD. The views and the layout are excellent. The building reflects the global nature of McGuireWoods and supports the firm’s continued growth as an international practice.”
Texas Tower is being built on the former Houston Chronicle site, on a downtown block bounded by Texas, Milam, Travis and Prairie. In 2015 Realty News Report published an exclusive that Hines was negotiating to buy the Chronicle’s downtown property for more than $50 million. The newspaper later moved to the former Houston Post building near Loop 610 after selling the downtown site where large delivery trucks once brought ink for the presses.
The Chronicle parcel included a 10-story office building and a nearby 560-space parking garage on a half-block at Prairie and Milam. Hines is also building a 46-story residential tower on the former Chronicle parking garage site, located diagonally across from the new office tower.
Editor’s note: Realty News Report editor Ralph Bivins covered real estate for the Houston Chronicle for many years.
Aug. 3, 2021 Realty News Report. Copyright 2021.
For more about Hines’ development work, see the book Houston 2020: America’s Boom Town – An Extreme Close Up by Ralph Bivins.
File: Law Firm Leases Space
File: (2) McGuireWoods — Law Firm Leases Space, Texas Tower. Hines, Cushman & Wakefield, Colliers. Bob Parsley, Darren Gowell, Taylor Wright, Michael Anderson.