Workspace Property Trust, led by Thomas A. Rizk and Roger W. Thomas, announced today that it has purchased an additional one million square feet across six class A suburban office buildings in five separate high-growth markets across the country from Griffin Realty Trust, Inc. (“GRT”) for $170.4 million, cementing its position as the preeminent national suburban office, light industrial, R&D, and flex company in the US. Jordan Bock, the founder of real estate investment firm Mason Capital, served as a strategic advisor and partner to Workspace and the consortium in conjunction with this transaction, and he remains on the Workspace Board of Directors.
When joined with the current Workspace portfolio, the six properties in suburban Chicago, Dallas, San Jose, Cincinnati, and Greensboro bring the company’s assets to 19 million square feet with over 200 structures in 23 major metropolitan centers in the United States. GRT will have a minority stake in the portfolio. The debt was financed by UBS.
Workspace owns and operates suburban office buildings in 14 of America’s top 20 cities, including Atlanta, Philadelphia, Dallas, Charlotte, Tampa, Phoenix, Silicon Valley, South Florida, Houston, Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, and St. Louis. Approximately 40% of the Fortune 500 have headquarters in Workspace cities, and the Fortune 1000 lease nearly seven million square feet of the Workspace portfolio.
More than 66% of total commercial office inventory in the United States is located in the suburbs, totaling over 2.5 billion square feet. According to a recent CBRE report, the downtown vacancy rate increased by 40 basis points quarter over quarter to 17.4%, while the suburban vacancy rate increased by 20 basis points to 16.9%, and the downtown vacancy rate surpassed the suburban vacancy rate for the second consecutive quarter in the third quarter 2022. CBRE also claimed that in a tight labor market, occupiers will choose locations closer to their workers and with walkable amenities that create a superior employee experience.
Workspace, as previously indicated, has a strong national orientation as a tenant-focused, lifestyle-oriented brand dedicated to fulfilling the demands of its corporate tenant partners. Workspace can offer a “network effect” by supplying partners with the desire for convenient and attractive places appealing to their workforce across the country with services and office solutions geared to give flexible working locations across its footprint. Workspace is committed to sustainability and decreasing the carbon footprints of its facilities to the greatest extent possible. Workspace takes its responsibilities as conscientious stewards of the communities it serves extremely seriously, emphasizing proper environmental, social, and governance standards in operations.
Workspace Property Trust is a privately held, vertically integrated, full-service commercial real estate company specializing in the ownership, management, leasing and development of office and light industrial, R&D and flex space across the US, Founded in 2015.
