Houston's Most Popular Submarket?
Office buildings in The Woodlands are leasing up as quickly as they’re built. (They'll even take it if it's made of Legos, as long as it has WiFi.) In advance of our Future of The Woodlands event April 29 (register here), we spoke with developers who have enjoyed stellar pre-leasing in the submarket.
Warmack Investments’ Research Forest Lakeside has put three office buildings on the ground since 2010, but good luck finding space there. Founder James Warmack (here to the right of Ziegler Cooper’s Kurt Hull, the property’s architect) tells us four of the campus’ five buildings are 100% occupied. (Maybe they could institute a daily game of musical office space so people who couldn't get in have a shot.) The fifth, a 12-story tower, is 82% leased. Office isn’t the only sector experiencing speedy leasing: 33k SF of retail delivering in July is already 50% pre-leased (among the users are Corner Bakery and Grub Burger).
Repsol is moving into 200k SF Building 5 in a few months. Next in the pipeline is a 135k SF, six-story glass and brick building and four-story garage being built very close to the retail and main entrance to the campus. James tells us five buildings totaling 760k SF remain to be developed after that. That includes two state-of-the-art glass buildings on the lake, which won’t begin without anchor tenants. (They should check the bottom of the lake for any leftover anchors.) Kurt says users have been flocking to Research Forest Lakeside because of the high-quality product, views of the lake from all buildings, and sustainable design. He also gave props to Clark Condon for its gorgeous courtyard, which has been popular among tenants.
Ziegler Cooper is handling two other projects around Lake Woodlands. Kurt's designing CB&I’s campus on Research Forest Drive. It’s building a 150k SF six-story facility now, which will link to its existing 120k SF four-story building. And over in Hughes Landing, Scott Ziegler is spearheading design of One Lake's Edge, a 390-unit multifamily tower.
