Liberty Property Trust Completes Spec Office Tower in Houston

By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

A little over a year after breaking ground at Legacy at Fallbrook in Houston, Liberty Property Trust has wrapped up development of the office complex’s first tower, a 206,800-square-foot spec building at 10720 W. Sam Houston Parkway N.

Sited in Houston’s Northwest submarket, the 20-acre Legacy at Fallbrook complex will ultimately offer 621,000 square feet of Class A office space among three buildings designed by Powers Brown Architecture. The first tower is a five-story, LEED Gold-certified tower that also offers a structured parking facility. EE Reed Construction Co. spearheaded construction.

Completion of Phase I is just part of the news at Legacy at Fallbrook; the property’s first tenant has signed. Stuart Title entered into a lease agreement for approximately 31,000 square feet of space at the state-of-the-art building. It’s no small feat, given the current state of the office market in Houston.

In the first quarter, the year-over-year office vacancy rate increased 70 points, from 11.8 percent to 12.5 percent, and the absorption rate dropped from 2.3 million square feet to 1.2 million square feet, according to a report by commercial real estate services firm Colliers International. There’s a clear culprit. “Houston’s office market indicators have begun to reflect the dramatic drop in oil prices that occurred in Q4 2014. This is no surprise as just over one-half of Houston’s economy is directly tied to the energy industry,” per the report.

Real estate services firm Stream Realty Partners is onboard to handle leasing at Legacy at Fallbrook.