50-Story Trammell Crow Center Sells For A Suitably Sky-High Price

Downtown Dallas’ iconic Trammell Crow Center has a new owner for what is believed to be among the highest prices ever paid for a DFW commercial property.

Regent Properties, a real estate investment management and development firm, acquired the 50-story, 1.2M SF, Class-A office tower at 2001 Ross Ave. at an undisclosed price, which the Dallas Morning News estimated at more than $600M. Regent’s purchase also includes 2000 Ross Ave., an adjacent city block with space available for a new residential or office tower.

“We are delighted to complete this transaction and are proud to own a long-standing fixture of the Dallas skyline,” Regent Properties CEO Eric Fleiss said in a statement. “Last year we set an objective to invest more than $2 billion in high-quality office real estate across Texas and the Sunbelt regions. The purchase of this iconic asset, during a period of market dislocation, reflects our view that sustained demand for these best-in-class office towers will continue.”

Regent’s investment reflects the development community’s confidence in a full resurgence of Dallas’ office market, which in recent months has rebounded from pandemic-induced blows. DFW finished the year strong with more than 790K SF of positive absorption in Q4, a 1.4M SF increase over Q3, according to CBRE. 

Greg Fuller, president and chief operating officer of Plano-based developer Granite Properties, said at a recent Bisnow event that newer, Class-A office buildings in DFW are seeing increased leasing activity, while the rest are still struggling to attract tenants. 

“A product that has been built since 2015 has had positive absorption — every other product type in office has not,” he said. “The flight to quality and the flight to location is really significant this time around.”

A 2,000-space parking garage, an athletic club, a conference center and 32K SF of retail space are among the $180M worth of improvements made at the Trammell Crow Center in recent years. Sam Kraus, principal and head of investments at Regent, pointed to the renovation as one reason behind the project’s ability to generate more than 180K SF of leasing during the pandemic.

“The seller’s transformative renovation has created a modern and vertically-oriented campus-like layout, which has proven to be a compelling environment for talented employees and, in turn, their employers,” Kraus said in a statement.