Camden Property Trust’s HQ move is another loss for Greenway Plaza

A big office lease in Houston cuts both ways in a market caught between dipping occupancy and rising interest rates.

Camden Property Trust leased 104,000 square feet of space in the 64-story Williams Tower, at 2800 Post Oak Boulevard, a win for landlord Invesco Real Estate, the Houston Chronicle reported. 

The loser in the deal is Greenway Plaza, a distressed office campus where multifamily developer Camden had kept its headquarters for about 30 years.

The exit presents another complication for the Greenway campus. Its owners, Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board, Nuveen Real Estate and Silverpeak Real Estate Partners, have defaulted on a $465 million loan. 

The loss of Camden comes as a court-appointed receiver tries to sell off the 4.5 million square-foot campus, in the Upper Kirby district between the Rice Village residential neighborhood and River Oaks retail hub.

Documents filed in a Harris County court indicate that potential buyers have been touring the property, although there’s been no public listing or price for the property.

Representatives of receiver Trigild Texas did not comment.

The Houston office market has seen stubborn vacancy rates carry through to the wake of the pandemic. Avison Young currently pegs the average at 26 percent, and the rate is likely significantly higher for older properties that have not gotten extensive makeovers lately.

Camden is a top-20 apartment developer nationwide, with 58,000 units in its portfolio, according to the National Multifamily Housing Coalition. The developer’s lease is the second-biggest at Williams Tower, where chemical supply and logistics specialist LyondellBasell Industries moved from downtown for a 318,000-square-foot headquarters.

Williams Tower, in the Galleria area, was built in 1983 and spans 1.4 million square feet. It was developed by Hines and designed by New York-based John Burgee Architects with Philip Johnson, in association with Houston-based Morris-Aubry Architects.

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