One Alamo Center, a once mostly vacant building after the departure of two large tenants, has been experiencing a resurgence in new leasing activity over the past 18 months.
The latest lease signed for space at 106 S. St Mary’s St. is for more than 22,300 square feet of space. It is the new office location for Catto & Catto LLC. The local risk management firm moved a few blocks down from its previous location at 217 East Houston St.
Several years ago, offices for both the San Antonio Housing Authority and the law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani held leases spanning entire floors in One Alamo. SAHA, which is now located at 818 S. Flores Street, moved into its current offices at about the same time that Bracewell & Giuliani moved to the Bank of America Plaza building at 300 Convent.
Stream Realty Partners’ Carolyn Hinchey Shaw — who represented the landlord in the One Alamo transaction along with Stream associate Lindsay Kopplow — said that interest in space downtown has been on the upswing. Over the past year and a half, the vacancy rate in One Alamo Center shot up from a low of 39 percent up to its current rate of 88 percent. The building is owned by Klabzuba Properties III, Ltd., an oil-and-gas investment company that also has a hand in non-energy related ventures.
“(One Alamo Center) is a more traditional office … but there is an uptick in interest in office space downtown,” she told me of recent trends she’s noticed in the area. “A lot of that can be attributed to the urban development going on and being able to walk around is connected to seeing more demand for creative, downtown urban office space.”
Shaw added that with the increase in new restaurants, cool parks and desirable living options downtown, she expects a lot more companies will pay more attention to the emerging urban environment in the center city.
By: Katie Burke, San Antonio Business Journal