Interra buys Greenway Plaza

Interra Capital Group has bought Houston’s Greenway Plaza, a 53-acre office campus that had been stuck in receivership for years. (bizjournals.com) Interra announced the deal on April 10 and said the campus totals about 4.5 million square feet along Interstate 69 inside the 610 Loop. The firm did not disclose a purchase price. (prnewswire.com) Houston Chronicle reported the transaction was structured through assumption of a $416.2 million loan tied to the property. Public reports said the complex had been under financial strain before the sale. (houstonchronicle.com) That makes this more than a routine property trade. Greenway Plaza is one of Houston’s biggest office concentrations, and large office campuses with troubled debt have been one of the hardest parts of the commercial real estate market to finance and sell. (bisnow.com) Interra said it will focus on leasing and repositioning the property, and it appointed CBRE to lead leasing. In office real estate, repositioning usually means spending on upgrades, amenities, and tenant mix to raise occupancy and rents. (bizjournals.com) The asset is large enough that different outlets describe it slightly differently. Interra’s release called it a 4.5 million-square-foot, 53-acre mixed-use campus, while The Real Deal described an 11-building campus with 4.9 million square feet of office space on roughly 54 acres. (prnewswire.com) (therealdeal.com) The last widely reported benchmark for the property was much higher. The Real Deal said Greenway Plaza sold for $950 million in 2013, a gap that shows how sharply values have reset for some big office assets. (therealdeal.com) Greenway Plaza was developed from the late 1960s into the early 1980s and grew into one of the country’s largest infill business campuses. Its location between Downtown Houston and the Galleria has long made it a major address for office tenants. (realtynewsreport.com) Interra’s bet is that a distressed Houston landmark can be leased back into relevance rather than written off. The next test is whether new ownership and fresh capital can fill space in one of the city’s most visible office districts. (bizjournals.com)