Ray Washburne’s firm renews largest lease in building bought last year

Founders Square has retained its biggest tenant. 

Law firm Cooper & Scully renewed its lease for 47,900 square feet at the historic office building, at 900 Jackson Street in downtown Dallas.

Stream Realty Partners’ Rhett Miller and Sam Bass represented the landlord, Ray Washburne’s Charter Holdings, in the transaction. CBRE’s John Ellerman and Jeff Ellerman repped Cooper & Scully. Terms of the lease weren’t disclosed.

The litigation firm has been in the space since 2013. 

The seven-story red brick building was constructed in 1915 for Higginbotham-Bailey-Logan Company dry goods and was converted to an office building in 1984. It was renovated in 2016 and spans 274,000 square feet. 

Charter Holdings purchased the property last year. It was about 75 percent leased at the time the firm bought it. The purchase price was not disclosed, but it was valued at $14 million in 2023, according to appraisal district data. 

Washburne told the Dallas Morning News that he bought the building because he loved it and planned to “doll it up.”

Dallas’ office market has struggled with high vacancy as companies transition to remote work. Downtown Dallas’ vacancy rate was 26.4 percent this spring, Partners’ Steve Triolet said. 

With companies shedding space, the city’s sublease market has exploded. It peaked in 2023 at 11.2 million square feet. This spring, it had fallen to about 10.5 million square feet. 

Charter Holdings is a Dallas-based real estate investment company known for its 2009 purchase of Highland Park Village, a shopping center in Dallas’ posh Highland Park neighborhood. The firm also purchased the former Dallas Morning News building downtown for $28 million in 2019. 

Washburne also co-founded the M Crowd Restaurant Group and was former President Trump’s pick for president of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. 

Cooper & Scully was founded in 1993 and has offices in Dallas, Austin, Houston and San Francisco.