HOUSTON — Columbia Property Trust has sold three Houston office properties to Spear Street Capital for $272 million. The portfolio comprises roughly 1.2 million square feet and includes 5 Houston Center, Energy Center I, and 515 Post Oak Boulevard.
“Although our Houston assets have performed well over time, we are concentrating on select, high-barrier markets as we continue to position Columbia as a leading office REIT,” said Nelson Mills, president and CEO of Atlanta-based Columbia Property Trust.
5 Houston Center, located at 1401 McKinney, was developed by Crescent Real Estate and contains approximately 581,000 square feet of downtown office space near Discovery Green Park. The 27-story tower, completed in 2002, has been owned and managed by Columbia since 2005. Ernst & Young is among the building’s largest tenants.
Energy Center I, a 332,000-square-foot building at 585 N. Dairy Ashford Road, sits near Interstate 10 in Houston’s Energy Corridor. Constructed in 2008 and acquired by Columbia in 2010, the property serves as the Americas headquarters for Amec Foster Wheeler, a global engineering and construction contractor.
515 Post Oak Boulevard is a 12-story, 274,000-square-foot office building in Houston’s Galleria submarket. Columbia purchased the property in 2004 and completed an extensive renovation in 2013, which helped attract new tenants including NetIQ Corporation and Rockwater Energy Solutions.
The transaction reflects Columbia’s strategic shift toward markets with higher barriers to entry while enabling the company to redeploy capital into its prioritized markets. The sale to Spear Street Capital transfers ownership of three well-located Houston office assets to a buyer focused on acquiring institutional-quality properties.
Jan 9, 2017 Realty News Report Copyright 2017