HOUSTON – California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) has agreed to acquire the Bank of America Tower from Skanska for $542 million, or roughly $695 per square foot, marking a record price per square foot for an office building in Houston, according to Real Estate Alert.
Located at 800 Capitol Street, the 754,000-square-foot tower occupies a full block bounded by Travis, Milam and Rusk streets in downtown Houston.
Bank of America is the anchor tenant, leasing approximately 210,000 square feet of office space in addition to about 5,000 square feet for a street-level bank lobby.
The 35-story tower also features a 35,000-square-foot lower-level food hall and retail amenity area called “Understory.”
The Bank of America Tower is the newest office building in downtown Houston and opened just a few months ago.
Real Estate Alert reports that Skanska is expected to retain roughly 10 percent ownership of the building. Eastdil Secured is handling the sale.
The building is about 90 percent leased. Current tenants include:
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Skanska (12,481 SF, floor 12)
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Bank of America (210,000 SF, floors 14–20)
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Winston & Strawn (62,515 SF, floors 23–24)
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Waste Management (284,000 SF, floors 25–33)
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Quantum Energy Partners (32,000 SF, floors 35–36)
The site for the new tower was assembled over several years. In 2011, Skanska acquired the former 18-story Houston Club building at 811 Rusk and subsequently demolished it, creating a clean, full-block site for development.
Construction milestones included a massive foundation pour on August 22–23, 2015, completed by a large fleet of concrete trucks. That work occurred amid a dramatic slump in oil prices: West Texas Intermediate crude, which topped $100 per barrel in 2014, plunged and would fall below $27 per barrel in early 2016.
Following the 2015 foundation pour, Skanska slowed vertical construction while CBRE worked to secure tenants. The project gained momentum after Bank of America committed to lease space, and vertical construction began in 2017.
After opening in the summer, Skanska moved to market the building for sale, an effort that appears to yield a record per-square-foot price in Houston. The previous record was $528 per square foot, set when Masaveu paid $172 million for the BBVA Compass building in 2015.
Nov. 19, 2019 Realty News Report Copyright 2019
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