New York Life underwrites $208M loan for Hines tower
New York Life Real Estate Investors has underwritten a $208 million short-term loan for Hines and Prime Asset Management’s 717 Texas office building downtown.
The loan will finance an ongoing repositioning strategy at the 33-story building, which was developed by Hines and opened in 2003. The building will unveil the Hines2, or Hines Squared, coworking and tenant amenity offering this fall.
The floating-rate bridge loan has a term of three years plus an extension option with interest-only payments, according to New York Life.
The 697,300-squarefoot building, near the Theater District, is valued at nearly $227 million on Harris County tax records.
Renovations underway on the 28,000-squarefoot 12th floor include a rooftop garden, workspace lounge and reception, tenant conference center and coworking space. The work will build upon recent improvements that brought a hospitality-inspired lobby with new furnishings, wall and elevator finishes, lighting and security console upgrades.
BHP removes logo at Uptown office as rebranding persists
BHP, having recently rebranded and dropped Billiton from its name, took down the logo at the top of its building at 1500 Post Oak and is in the process of replacing it, an effort that will be complete later this summer.
A new sign, reflecting the new company logo, will rise shortly according to building manager Transwestern.
The Houston-based oil and gas arm of Australian mining conglomerate BHP Group commissioned its Uptown building in 2013 when it was in a major growth spurt and the price of oil was at a near-record high.
The company sold its U.S. shale assets to BP last year and put some 270,000 square feet of space on the sublease market. BPH’s lease for the entire 30-story, 600,000-square-foot 2200 Post Oak building runs through 2031.
Hospital finishes expansion project at Cypress facility
Memorial Hermann Cypress Hospital has completed a year-long expansion project that added 24 licensed beds to the northwest Houston facility.
The hospital, which opened at 27800 Northwest Freeway in Cypress in March 2017, has more than 820 affiliated physicians across 60 specialties.
The nearly $25 million expansion included four neonatal intensive care unit incubators, 20 medical/ surgical beds, four intensive care unit beds, a 10-bed observation unit with two additional beds in the cardiovascular recovery unit, an additional endoscopy suite for gastrointestinal procedures, a cardiac catheterization laboratory for heart procedures, trauma room equipment and equipment for four additional rooms in the emergency department, and an additional CT Scanner for trauma patients. The expansion was made within existing space on the campus.
Workforce rentals push vacancy rate near 20-year low
Demand for workforce apartments has driven vacancy rates of older, less expensive housing — known as Class C multifamily — near a 20-year low, according to the real estate brokerage Marcus & Millichap.
The company attributed the 3.5 percent vacancy rate for such housing to the historically low unemployment rate. The June unemployment rate was 3.7 percent, according to the firm.
While year-over-year rent growth in Houston has been slow in 2019 because of the surge in rent prices that followed Hurricane Harvey-driven demand for rentals in 2018, there are differences at either end of the market.
The commercial property data group CoStar said rents at the bottom of the market are on track to rise the most quickly. In a report on the multifamily market, CoStar predicted rents would increase 0.2 percent for high-end apartments in 2019 from the year before, compared to 1.1 percent for workforce housing.