HOUSTON – (Realty News Report) – Transwestern Real Estate Services has been appointed to manage leasing for the Downtown Columbia, Maryland office portfolio owned by The Howard Hughes Corporation, headquartered in The Woodlands.
The Downtown Columbia portfolio comprises more than the current 12 buildings totaling 1.8 million square feet.
In addition to existing properties, The Howard Hughes Corporation controls over 3.6 million square feet of entitled future office development in Columbia.
“We are thrilled to establish this partnership with The Howard Hughes Corporation and to be a part of the tremendous growth the team is creating across Downtown Columbia. We look forward to building on the momentum they have established within this thriving market,” said Transwestern Executive Vice President Alex Hancock.
The Howard Hughes Corporation holds substantial real estate interests in the Houston area, including the 28,000-acre master-planned community known as The Woodlands.
Transwestern will oversee leasing across HHC’s entire Downtown Columbia office portfolio, including 6100 Merriweather, One Merriweather, Two Merriweather, and the new office developments in the Merriweather District; the Corporate Row buildings and One Mall North in the Central District; and the Teachers Building and planned office developments in the Lakefront District.
At full build-out, Downtown Columbia’s redevelopment is projected to include 14 million square feet of new development across 391 acres. The Merriweather District is expected to account for 4.9 million square feet of that total mixed-use development and will be concentrated on 35 acres of developable land within a broader 100-acre area of protected forests, streams and restored wetlands.
“With the Transwestern team leasing our full office portfolio, I am confident that we will continue to attract major tenants and deliver the results that are integral to our success in fulfilling our vision for Downtown Columbia,” said Greg Fitchitt, President, Columbia, The Howard Hughes Corp.
Hancock’s leasing team was recently recognized for securing a 400,000-square-foot, long-term tenancy at Reston Town Center. Notably, in 2020—a year marked by significant leasing challenges due to the global pandemic—Transwestern completed 700,000 square feet of leasing transactions in the Mid-Atlantic region.
The Howard Hughes Corporation owns, manages and develops commercial, residential, and mixed-use real estate across the United States, including the Seaport District in New York; Summerlin in Las Vegas; and Ward Village in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi.
In the Houston area, Howard Hughes is developing Bridgelands, which led the region last year with 841 single-family housing starts, according to Zonda. The company is also developing The Woodlands Hills in Willis, which ranked 29th in starts in the Greater Houston area.
The Howard Hughes Corporation is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker HHC.
Downtown Columbia is situated at the center of Columbia, Maryland—one of the United States’ early master-planned communities, founded by developer James W. Rouse in 1967. Conveniently located between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Columbia encompasses 14,000 acres and includes ten completed residential villages along with an extensive pipeline of commercial development opportunities within its downtown.
May 8, 2021 Realty News Report. Copyright 2021.
For more about Texas real estate, see the book Houston 2020: America’s Boom Town – An Extreme Close Up by Ralph Bivins. Available on Amazon.
File: Transwestern to Lease Huge Howard Hughes Project
Photo courtesy Transwestern