San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Real estate firm Broadway-bound
Acommercial real estate firm is consolidating its three local offices and planning tomove into a new building along the booming Broadway corridor, injecting more employees into San Antonio’s urban core.
CBRE is leasing about 17,000 square feet on the top floor of the Oxbow, an eight-story building at 1803 Broadway that developer Silver Ventures constructed near its mixed-use complex at the Pearl.
Its 81 local employees are slated to move into the building in the second quarter of next year.
“We’re eager and excited to bring employees acrossmultiple service lines together under one roof,” said Gardner Peavy, managing director of CBRE’s San Antoniomarket.
The firm ismoving into a building it was hired to lease and market. Christi Griggs and Steve Thomas of CBRE represented Silver Ventures in the lease negotiations.
The firm currently occupies a total of 22,550 square feet across offices at 250W. Nottingham Drive, 1100 NE Loop 410 and 200 Concord Plaza Drive.
Those offices “are open at reduced occupancy and there is a mix of remote and in-person working,” said PeterVan Emburgh, CBRE’s global lead of corporate real estate.
“We expect that to continue, as employees have become accustomed to working differently this
year,” he said.
“The office will continue to be an important destination to connect and collaborate with colleagues and clients, and our design will support both internal and external mobility.”
CBRE is the latest company to move employees to San Antonio’s urban core.
Bank of America is leasing 66,000 square feet in the Oxbow building. Several other tenants will be announced when they are closer to moving in, said Elizabeth Fauerso, chief strategy and marketing officer at the Pearl.
About 15,000 square feet of office space and a 1,100-squarefoot retail slot are still available.
The Oxbow is next to a 12-story building that will house Credit Human’s new headquarters. A restaurant is moving into the ground floor, Fauerso said.
Work is substantially finished
on both buildings, she said. Rents are $38 per square foot before taxes, insurance and other costs.
In 2017, city and council officials approvedmore than $8 million worth of incentives for Credit Human’s relocation. The credit union is currently based at 6061W. Interstate 10 and had considered leaving San Antonio.
The package includes tax abatements and rebates. As part of the deal, Credit Human is required to move 435 employees to the Pearl tower and create another 50 jobs.
The credit union recently sold a building at 171N. Loop 1604 E. that housed some of its lending operations and a branch, which closed when it opened two new “financial health centers” at Bulverde Marketplace and the Vineyard Shopping Center, spokesman Chris Armstrong said.
It also sold a building at 14570
Huebner Road and opened a new center to replace it at Alon Town Centre.
The lending staff from the
Loop 1604 building will be relocating to Credit Human’s new headquarters at 1703 Broadway, Armstrong said. The credit union is scheduled to move into the building in January.
Another financial institution based on the Northeast Side is also relocating. Jefferson Bank recently started constructing a 13-story building in the 1900 block of Broadway that will house its corporate offices and other tenants.
Construction is expected to be complete by the third quarter of 2022. The bank’s current headquarters is at Loop 410 near HarryWurzbach.
A bunch of projects are in the works around the Pearl. That includes GrayStreet Partners’ planned 1.6 million-square-foot mixed-use development across Broadway fromthe complex, which it is calling Broadway East.
The developer is teaming with Houston-based Midway on the project. It will includemultifamily housing, retail and hospitality space, offices and outdoor plazas.
Hines buys Amazon center
In other real estate news,
Hines Global Income Trust Inc. bought a Schertz facility that’s leased by Amazon.
The 1.26 million-square-foot warehouse, a fulfillment center at 6000 Schertz Parkway for the online behemoth, opened in
2013. Schertz and Guadalupe County officials approved about $7.6 million in tax incentives for the facility.
Hines executives said the flurry of activity along the I-35 corridor between San Antonio and Austin made the center attractive. The development and investment firm bought it for $129.2 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“This is a critical location with a high growth consumer base,” Hines managing director Laura Denkler said in a statement. “We continue to pursue logistics assets with immediate proximity to population density and solid connectivity tomajor thoroughfares. This acquisition is another step forward for Hines in the Austin/San Antonio marketplace.”
Amazon also has a distribution center in San Marcos and operates several warehouses in San Antonio, including a sorting center on theWest Side and a fulfillment facility on the East Side.
The company plans to open a North Side center for “last mile” deliveries to local customers.