McKesson To Sublease 270K SF In Irving

The mountain of available office space in Dallas-Fort Worth is about to get a little taller.

McKesson, an international drug and medical products distributor, wants to sublease more than 270,000 square feet of its headquarters at the Las Colinas mixed-use complex in Irving, the Dallas Morning News reported.

McKesson has hired CBRE to market the space in the two-building campus at 6535-6555 State Highway 161, which houses more than 1,500 employees. The company relocated its main offices to the Irving site from California in 2019. It acquired the buildings in 2016.

Despite the sublease listing, the company is planning a $20 million renovation of the larger building. The project, spanning 90,000 square feet at 6555 State Highway 161, will include upgrades to the café, new meeting spaces and a conference center and improvements to the lobby. Architecture firm Gensler is handling the renovations.

By making improvements, McKesson hopes to consolidate some of its operations in the larger building, the outlet said.

Almost 11,000 square feet of sublease space is up for grabs in North Texas. Among the region’s largest sublease listings are the 327,000-square-foot Reata Pharmaceuticals tower in Plano and the Epic development in Dallas’ Deep Ellum district.

The office vacancy rate in DFW has reached 27 percent, including sublease space. It’s the latest sign of the pandemic-fueled remote-work era wreaking havoc on the region’s office sector, which has more recently been plagued by rising interest rates and a tight lending climate.

Years of poor performance in the office sector has caused distress to rear its head in North Texas. In November, lenders foreclosed on two office buildings in Addison. And a foreclosure was scheduled earlier this month for an office building in Uptown Dallas.

—Quinn Donoghue