Developer sets sights on Irving

DALLAS MORNING NEWS

Westmount Realty buys Las Colinas offices, plans upgrades
By: Steve Brown, Real Estate Editor

A downtown developer and investor has gone to the burbs with the purchase of a Las Colinas office complex.

Westmount Realty Capital L.L.C.—which has done several projects in the Dallas central business district—bought the Waterside Commons office complex on State Highway 114 in Irving.

The complex of six buildings overlooks a small lake at the south entrance to the Las Colinas community.

“We like this complex because it’s the first property you see going into Las Colinas,” said Cliff Booth, president of Westmount Realty Capital, which bought the buildings in partnership with California investor Buchanan Street Partners.

Westmount purchased the 459,000-square-foot office complex from Crescent Real Estate Equities.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but the buildings are valued for taxes at more than $21 million.

The buildings were constructed in the 1980’s and are about 50 percent leased to Sprint-Nextel Corp.

The new owners have renamed the project Riverside Commons and plan to spend several million dollars upgrading the property.

“We are going to do a cleanup of the buildings with new signage, landscaping, and we will redo all the lobbies,” Mr. Booth said.

The investors have hired Capstar Commercial to market the property to small and midsize business tenants.

Las Colinas is having a rebound in office leasing after several years of lagging demand. Last year, expanding and relocating tenants occupied an additional 600,000 square feet of space in the area.

“We think it’s a great time to be acquiring assets in Las Colinas,” Mr. Booth said.

“With the recent acquisition of vacant land in the project by Houston-based Hines and all the apartment and retail development going in, we think there is a lot of momentum.

Westmount Realty is developing the SoCo Urban Lofts condominium project in downtown Dallas. And the investor recently sold a Plano office and industrial complex to mortgage giant Countrywide Financial Corp.