The Wideman Company paid the building’s longtime owner, Brookfield Properties, an undisclosed amount for the 850,000-square-foot property.
Located at 1201 Louisiana, the building has an appraised value of $121.8 million, according to Harris County deed records.
The sale is another sign that well-maintained, trophy office assets continue to attract leasing and investment activity, even as the wider downtown office market faces a 24% vacancy rate, according to research from real estate firm Transwestern.
“We’ve done about 163,000 square feet of new leases at Jones since we’ve bought it and that reaffirmed to us the fundamentals associated with the Houston market,” said Harrison Loew of The Wideman Company, in an interview.
TotalEnergies Tower, anchored by French energy giant TotalEnegeries, will allow Wideman to capture tenants who need bigger floorplates than what can be found at Jones on Main, he said. The company may also fund some improvements to boost occupancy, said Loew. The building is about 82% occupied.
“Some designs when you look at them, they scream 1970s – others don’t. When you look at TotalEnergies Tower, it is a glass, high-rise, a beautiful, modern, class A building and it’s been kept up,” he said.
With the TotalEneriges Tower acquisition, Wideman now owns about 1.7 million square feet of office space downtown.
The deal signals “long-term confidence in the future of Houston’s urban core,” said Kris Larson, president of Downtown Houston.
Yet the sale also represents another major divestment in downtown for Brookfield Properties, which was the biggest office landlord in the district with a portfolio of 11 million square feet just five years ago.
Last year, Brookfield transferred ownership of Houston Center, the 4.6-million-square mixed-use complex, to AustralianSuper and Stream Realty. The company still owns Allen Center and Heritage Plaza. Brookfield did not respond to requests for comment.