Endeavor has purchased Plaza on the Lake, a recently renovated office building about six miles northwest of downtown Austin. The property, located at 5000 Plaza on the Lake, spans 120,800 square feet, making it one of the larger office deals this year in the capital city.
Newmark’s Chris Murphy, Robert Hill and Gary Carr repped the seller, an affiliate of Clarion Partners. Clarion is a large real estate investor based in New York and owned by Franklin Templeton. The price wasn’t disclosed; the Travis Appraisal District values the property at $41.5 million.
The three-story office sits on 4.5 acres fronting Lake Austin near Austin Country Club. One selling point was that it lies near the affluent neighborhoods in west Austin, Murphy said.
Plaza on the Lake was built in 1985 and received about $5 million in renovations in 2021. It is 68 percent leased, and the vast majority of tenants signed on in the last three years. There are nine spaces available for lease at the moment, according to Endeavor’s website, ranging from 1,500 square feet to 9,900 square feet.
Commercial deal flow has been slow for months. While more people are working from home, suburban offices have had mixed fates. Even Plaza on the Lake, with its recent renovations and ideal location for local commuters, is not close to fully leased.
Similar problems face downtown offices. Some of Austin’s most significant developments of the past five years, like Trammell Crow’s 601 West 2nd Street, signed tenants years ago but remain unoccupied.
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Still, there are signs of growing interest in suburban offices. Plaza on the Lake drew more than 20 offers across several bidding rounds, Murphy said.
Endeavor is one of Austin’s biggest commercial players, with about 9.2 million square feet of office, retail and industrial space, and another 4.3 million square feet under construction. It is planning to build a five-story office building in downtown Austin and a 71-acre mixed-use project in East Austin.