This Week's Houston Deal Sheet
Diamond Offshore, a contract drilling services company, signed a 62K SF lease for its headquarters at One Eldridge in the Energy Corridor. The company will occupy the ninth, 11th and 12th floor of the 12-story office building at 777 North Eldridge Parkway.
Diamond Offshore will relocate from 15415 Katy Freeway in Q4 2023, bringing about 160 employees.
Diamond Offshore was represented on the lease transaction by Lonna Jenks of JLL and Eric Anderson of Transwestern. Granite was represented by Jon Dutton and Andrew Elliott of Granite.
One Eldridge is a Class-A, 245K SF, LEED Gold-certified office building. It is part of Eldridge, a Class-A, 824K SF, three-building office complex Granite acquired in 2019. All three buildings feature updated hospitality-driven lobbies and new outdoor workspaces called The Yard.
Eldridge also offers a customer connection center at the center of the complex, which was completed in 2020, and is accessible to all Granite customers. The center has a greeting desk, a coffee bar, a MOVE fitness center and three MEET conference rooms.
PEOPLE
Fertitta Entertainment hired Maurice Wooden as president of luxury hotel development. In this role, Wooden will oversee all facets of research and development for the company’s luxury hotel brands.
Wooden has more than 36 years of experience. He began his casino resort career in 1987 as a supervisor at Golden Nugget Las Vegas and ultimately became president of Golden Nugget Las Vegas. Most recently, Wooden was president and chief operating officer of hospitality for the Wynn and Encore Las Vegas properties.
Fertitta Entertainment Hotel Luxury Brands include two locations, The Post Oak Hotel at Uptown Houston and Montage Laguna Beach Resort Hotel, both of which have a Forbes Five-Star Hotel rating.
SALES
Marcus & Millichap announced the sale of Space City Self Storage, a 57K SF storage facility in Houston.
Dave Knobler of Marcus & Millichap’s Houston office and Charles "Chico" LeClaire of Marcus & Millichap’s Denver office had the exclusive listing to market the property on behalf of the seller, a Houston-based LLC. The buyer, an Arizona-based REIT, was also secured by Knobler and LeClaire.
Space City Self Storage is about 10 miles south of downtown. The property sits on 4.38 acres and has nine single-story buildings consisting of 225 drive-up nonclimatized units and 175 climate-controlled units. The facility has amenities including video surveillance, an automatic entrance gate with key code access, roll-up doors, concrete driveways, and a full-service on-site manager's office. The property was initially constructed in 2017 and nearly doubled in size with an expansion in 2019.
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Jordon Emmott and Abraham Garza of GREA brokered the sale of Chateaux Dijon Apartments from Investres, which purchased the property in 2018, to Three Pillars Capital Group. The 426-unit multifamily community is in the Galleria area at 5331 Beverlyhill St. Three Pillars has extensive renovation plans for the community that President George W. Bush once called home.
In 2021, Emmott, Garza and Shayan Hasnain co-founded GREA, a national multifamily investment firm consisting of 12 offices and 77 brokers. GREA’s transacted sales volume exceeded $20B in two years.
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Parkside Capital announced the sale of 77 acres at the southeast corner of Cypress Rosehill Road and the Grand Parkway. The property has been acquired by White Unicorn Investments, an investment company specializing in real estate ventures.
The land parcel, originally purchased by Parkside Capital in 2021, offers development opportunities in a rapidly growing region.
White Unicorn previously developed the northeast corner of the intersection and secured tenants, including Chick-fil-A, Starbucks and Taco Bell. A multifamily development of 336 units built by McGrath Real Estate partners will also be situated on the northeast corner, developed by White Unicorn.
LEASES
Sturbridge Commercial Real Estate arranged a 14K SF lease with Beauty Empire for a junior anchor space at Barker Cypress Marketplace at 17977 FM 529. Beauty Empire operates over 25 stores in the greater Houston area.
Jason Gaines represented the landlord in the leasing transaction, and the tenant was represented by Okyi Urbina-Torres with W. Realty & Investment Group.
CONSTRUCTION & DEVELOPMENT
Angler Construction is the general contractor for the 1.3M SF Port 99 Industrial Park in Baytown. The 104-acre industrial park will consist of two industrial-grade tiltwall buildings and 17 acres of trailer storage. Provident Realty Advisors purchased the tract at 16702 FM 2354 and contracted Angler to develop the site.
Port 99 Industrial Park is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2024.
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Hoar Construction broke ground on a 328K SF parking garage for Sam Houston State University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine in Conroe. Hoar is serving as the general contractor on the project, which is expected to be completed by the summer of 2024.
The five-level garage will feature 983 spaces, several EV charging stations and a guided parking system. The garage will provide parking for students and faculty ahead of the opening of the new health professions building that will break ground in 2024.
Hoar was hired to oversee the design, fabrication and build-out of the garage and began the design planning phase in October 2022. The project sits on an old riverbed on the West Fork of the San Jacinto River, requiring the team to install Geopier Rammed Aggregate Piers 10-12 feet down to stabilize the structure in sandy terrain. During peak construction, as many as 140 workers will be on-site to assist with delivering the project.
The parking garage sits in the master-planned community of Grand Central Park along Interstate 45 and Loop 336. The exterior of the structure consists of vertical-colored panels that abstract DNA sequencing, in theme with the existing campus. A light box with Sam Houston State University's logo will act as a beacon at the corner of the parking garage, noting the campus's location from the freeway.
