‘A Crucial Market For Us’: Parkway COO To Address Bisnow’s Houston Event On May 7
When Parkway completed a joint venture with Midway and selected Houston as its home base in 2023, the commercial real estate investment, operations and management firm with 30M SF under management throughout the Sun Belt announced its arrival with a bang: the acquisition of two significant Houston mixed-use assets, Post Oak Central and CityWestPlace, in one of the biggest CRE deals of the year.
That deal — and Parkway’s dedication to Houston — will be top of mind when Parkway Chief Operating Officer Matt Mooney participates in the keynote interview at Bisnow’s Houston State of the Market event on May 7.
Mooney began his career at one of Parkway’s predecessor companies, Parkway Properties Inc. He later led the Atlanta office of Cousins Properties Inc. before returning to Parkway in 2021. Shortly after he rejoined the company, Parkway Property Investments joined forces with Houston’s Midway Holdings.
Active in numerous organizations and an avid golfer, Mooney is 2025 tournament chairman of the PGA Tour’s WM Phoenix Open.
Ahead of the Houston State of the Market event, Bisnow asked Mooney to share his thoughts on the new company and its plans for Houston.
Bisnow: What was the motivation behind the partnership between Parkway Property Investments and Midway? What are some highlights so far?
Mooney: A couple of key factors drove the combination. First, as a historically office-focused company, Parkway has continued to see the outperformance of mixed-use environments across our markets. This was a trend pre-Covid, only increasing post-Covid.
Midway brings expertise in developing mixed-use developments, with CityCentre being an example that everyone in Houston knows and loves. Adding this skill set to the Parkway platform made a lot of strategic sense.
On the Midway side, while the company executed developments nationally, the Parkway combination gave further reach across the Sun Belt with a large array of existing institutional partners.
There have been several highlights, but the acquisition of CityWest and Post Oak Central last year was clearly the largest. There weren’t many deals anywhere in the U.S. that exceeded $300M in 2023, so for us to complete that within three months of our partnership was about as strong a validation as you could hope for.
Bisnow: How would you describe the state of the Houston market, and what are Parkway’s goals here?
Mooney: Houston is like every market in that there is a fairly extreme bifurcation between high-quality assets and low-quality assets. The high-quality, well-located product is performing exceptionally well — in many cases, better than pre-Covid rents.
However, a lot of the lower-quality, irrelevant product takes the headlines, leaving opportunities for us. Our goal is to continue to outperform in our existing portfolio while finding ways to take underperforming, overlooked assets in the market and quickly improve them.
Bisnow: What does Parkway view as the template for successful developments, and how is the company executing on this vision in Houston?
Mooney: Location is clearly a key in real estate, particularly now, as we’re battling trends like hybrid work schedules. However, we’re also finding that if you create an environment where people want to come to the office, that makes it much easier for employers to make long-term lease commitments.
This is about the tenancy mix and design, but even more crucial is how we lease and manage the property, and we’re blessed with incredible professionals on our leasing and property operations teams.
Our CityWest campus is one of several that are performing extremely well right now. Since we closed on the portfolio last September, we’ve seen approximately 200K SF of leases signed. Companies are committing to being there because it is one of the most highly amenitized and differentiated assets in the market.
Bisnow: How does Houston differ from other regions where you’ve worked, and what did you learn in those places that you can apply to Houston?
Mooney: The desire for high-quality real estate — particularly high-quality mixed-use real estate with excellent management — is a consistent theme across all of the Sun Belt markets. Each city has its own preferences regarding restaurants and retail mix, but the overall demand drivers are similar.
One thing I will say about Houston that I think is overlooked nationally is that because this market was hit when oil prices collapsed in 2014-2015 and again during Covid, many employers had gotten as lean as they could be and are more willing to make longer-term commitments on their office leases. In somewhat of a first-in, first-out dynamic, there are pockets in West Houston that are now performing about as well as anywhere in the country from an absorption and rent growth perspective.
Bisnow: Why are you speaking at this Bisnow event, and what do you want Houston to know about you and Parkway?
Mooney: Our company is headquartered in Houston now, and our largest employee count is here, so it is a crucial market for us. There is an incredible community in Houston, with wonderful people and a strongly growing economy.
We’re grateful for our opportunities in Houston and want to continue to find ways to make a positive impact through the way we serve all of our stakeholders in creating what we hope will be a market-leading portfolio for many years to come.
To hear Mooney and other speakers, register here for the Houston State of the Market event on May 7.
This article was produced in collaboration between Parkway and Studio B. Bisnow news staff was not involved in the production of this content.
Studio B is Bisnow’s in-house content and design studio. To learn more about how Studio B can help your team, reach out to studio@bisnow.com.
