Houston Office Hits All-Time-High Vacancy Amid Statewide Slump

Houston-based Parkway — the real estate investment, operations and management firm formed in May by a partnership of Parkway Property Investments and Midway Holdings — bought two major Houston office assets from the company that formerly acquired Parkway Inc.

Parkway acquired Post Oak Central in the Galleria area and CityWestPlace in Westchase, totaling over 3M SF, in an all-cash deal. This is one of the largest transactions in the U.S. year-to-date, Parkway said in a news release, though it did not disclose the price. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board…

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With more vehicles than licensed drivers, cars have been king in new U.S. developments for decades.

Large — and expensive — parking structures for tenants have become a standard at multifamily properties across the nation, while local municipalities have set minimum requirements to accommodate the 90% of U.S. households owning at least one vehicle. 

But a growing body of research suggests undoing or altering this longstanding practice can translate to cheaper rents. And hundreds of communities, from blue-collar cities to swanky resort towns losing service employees, are beginning to pay attention, doing away with parking minimums in an effort to grow workforce and other affordable housing. 

A Rutgers Center for Real Estate white paper last month is the latest to weigh in on  accumulating research suggesting that stringent parking minimums correlate strongly with higher rents. "Any reduction in mandated parking requirements for residential developments will lower initial construction costs and decrease…

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In Case You Missed It...

Office tenants are asking to take a closer look at their landlords' books as a wave of distress threatens to upend the market.

Landlords have in the past been reluctant to disclose financial documents, said Jihane Boury, vice chairman at Savills North America. But as interest rates rise and a wall of office maturities looms, savvy brokers are inquiring about those items upfront.

Tenants are voting with their feet if they don't like what they see, according to Boury and other speakers at a Bisnow event last week. 

Owners have become more receptive to sharing information about their loan terms or their capital stack, but if they aren’t, brokers are doing their own investigating and, in some cases, even calling the lender themselves. “The tables have totally turned,” Boury said. “Even though landlords are still wanting to perform due diligence on their…

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