The 501 Congress building — an office building in a prime downtown Austin location with some high-profile tenants — has been purchased by AFIAA Swiss Foundation, an investment entity of 40 Swiss pension funds that focuses on international commercial properties.
The purchase price of the 11,400-square-foot building, along with a new adjoining parking garage, was $79.1 million.
The building, which is 76.3 percent leased, formerly was a 5-story annex to the adjoining 26-story Bank of America tower at Congress Avenue and Sixth Street. Stream Realty Partners gutted the annex and transformed it into a contemporary building that now houses cloud file-sharing giant Dropbox Inc.; Charles Schwab; wine-storage company Vine Vault; Allen Edmonds, a manufacturer and retailer of men’s footwear; and EMC2 Corp., the world’s largest supplier of data storage systems.
The acquisition expands AFIAA’s portfolio in the United States.
With offices in Zurich, New York and Sydney, AFIAA is an investment foundation with 31 commercial properties in North America, Australia and Europe, in cities including Chicago, Sydney, London, Paris, Vienna and Berlin.
By Shonda Novak