Los Angeles-based Younan Properties has acquired its sixth Houston commercial property since June with the recent purchase of a 17-story high-rise office building. It brings the firm’s holdings in the city to approximately 1.7 million square feet of class A office space.
Chicago-based Wind Realty sold Two Westlake Park, a 381,327-square-foot building, for an undisclosed price.
Situated in a 58-acre suburban office complex in west Houston encompassing three Hines-developed office buildings, Two Westlake Park was completed in 1982 and is located at 580 Westlake Park Blvd.
At the time of sale, the property was 97 percent occupied with tenants that included multinational petroleum company Conoco-Phillips, global energy group BP and Merrill Lynch.
Commenting on his firm’s latest acquisition, Zaya S. Younan, chairman and CEO of Younan Properties Inc., said in a statement, “In less than three months, we have made significant progress toward our goal of acquiring more than 5 million square feet of commercial assets in a city that is now on the verge of a major recovery and growth. Houston’s office market continued to perform strongly in the first half of 2007 and we remain extremely bullish about this city, as well as Dallas.”
Younan noted that unemployment in Houston has been the lowest since late 2000. “In the Katy Freeway submarket, vacancy has seen a dramatic decrease, to just over 7 percent, despite having the bulk of new construction citywide in the past year. In submarkets like West Loop/Galleria and Katy Freeway, we’ve seen the largest overall absorption through mid-year, with 949,450 square feet combined out of the 2 million square feet total.”
