Harris County has bagged a piece of downtown Houston in a $26 million deal, snapping up the Lamar Plaza, a 20-story office building firmly rooted at 1010 Lamar St. The package includes an adjacent parking garage over at 1111 Main St., documents from Harris County confirm.
The county's move to secure the property comes as part of a bigger plan to bring together various county offices, cutting back on leasing costs and altogether foregoing the need to construct new facilities, an endeavor that would have cost much more. According to statements in CoStar News, officials were once eyeing a new site near the junction of U.S. Highway 290 and I-610 but balked at the $85 million tab, a price tag that's only grown in the intervening years.
The county's commissioners court records, as reported by Chron, show that leaders sealed the deal back in September, earmarking $30 million for the purchase. This kitty includes contingency funds and fees, and there's talk of injecting at least a further $20 million for capital improvements. The first phase of renovations alone, greenlit swiftly after the negotiations, will burn through $9.5 million to get the building's infrastructure and systems in line with current standards and retrofit it for the county's use.
The storied parking garage has seen its own share of history, formerly playing host to the luxury flagship Sakowitz department store, Paper City Magazine notes. Renamed Lamar Plaza after a stint of refinancing and a $7 million makeover by previous owner Younan Properties, the office tower itself is a child of the early '80s, only to be scooped up by a lender in a foreclosure procedure. The keys to the building changed hands with VMC TRS 2 LLC, according to CoStar News, after Goodwin Advisors brokered the deal.
Goodwin's own Jason Presley and Evan Stone, during a tete-a-tete with CoStar News, revealed that the tower was a scant 20 percent filled at the time the county took over. The fate of current tenants remains hazy, as no official roll call has been released. The county rep tied to the sale played coy, dodging comments when reached out for words.
