NC-based REIT bets $130M on DFW office towers

JV with Plano-based Granite Properties marks Highwoods Properties first investment in Texas

From left: Granite Park Six tower and Granite’s 23Springs
From left: Granite Park Six tower and Granite’s 23 Springs (GFF, Getty)

A real estate investment trust from North Carolina has teamed up with a Texan developer to build two North Texas office towers.

Raleigh-based Highwoods Properties and Plano-based Granite Properties have formed a partnership on two of Granite’s ongoing projects that will total more than 1 million square feet of space upon completion, the Dallas Morning News reported. Highwoods will be an equity investor with a 50 percent stake in Granite’s new 23Springs office tower under construction in Uptown Dallas and its Granite Park Six high-rise being built on State Highway 121 in Plano.

The two towers, which are reportedly two of the largest such office developments underway in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, have a combined value of $660 million. Highwoods Properties plans to contribute about $130 million in total to the Granite buildings, which will be the North Carolina REIT’s first real estate play in North Texas.

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Granite senior executive Will Hendrickson said the deal marks the developer’s first joint venture with a real estate investment trust. “We’re expecting to bring in partners on most of our deals in the future,” he said in a statement.

Highwoods CEO Ted Klinck said the Dallas market fit with his company’s strategy of collecting “trophy” office buildings. On Wednesday, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the REIT had sold off PPG Place, an iconic castle-like glass complex in downtown Pittsburgh, to pay for its expansion into Dallas.

Granite’s 23Springs, a 26-story, 626,000-square-foot tower in Uptown Dallas, is currently under construction at the corner of Maple Avenue and Cedar Springs. The project, expected to open in 2025 will add 16,000 square feet of retail space to the area’s expansive roster of popular restaurants and luxury hotels.

The Plano property, going up on the south side of State Highway 121 near the Dallas North Tollway, is expected to top out by mid-2023 and is already 12 percent leased.

Maddy Sperling