When I interviewed Robert Reffkin in January about his company’s move into Dallas, I asked about overhead and office space. Was Compass going to have major office presence in Dallas, or would they keep on using the Oak Lawn office of The Collective, the firm they (sort of) acquired?
We will have offices here: big, beautiful offices, Reffkin told me.
True to his word, Dallas Compass has signed a large lease in a new, state-of-the-art Preston Center Office building. The location is very strategic, as it puts Compass on the front line in the war for juicy Park Cities/Preston Hollow listings.
Compass has rented 24,000 square feet in the new Terraces at Douglas Center, located at 5960 Berkshire Lane in Preston Center. The building has 172,000 square feet and was recently completed.
The firm has been active since landing in Dallas in January, and already has more than 80 sales agents, with plans to acquire more across the DFW area.
“Our momentum in Dallas is a testament to agents’ commitment to growing their business, providing their clients with best-in-class service,” Rob Lehman, chief growth officer at Compass, said in a statement. “We’re excited to build out this office space to serve our agents and their clients across the region.”
The New York City-based company is in more than a dozen cities across the U.S. and plans to expand to eight more this year. By 2020, Compass wants to own 20% of the U.S. residential real estate market.
Compass is one of the first major tenants in the 12-story office Terraces at Douglas Center, located near the southeast corner of the Dallas North Tollway and Northwest Highway. The 172,000 square-foot office building was developed by PegasusAblon (owned by Michael Ablon) and Lionstone Investments of Houston.
Preston Center is a smoking hot office market, despite the roadblock eyesore of the parking garage on the west side of Preston. Just go west of Douglas and the hotness factor increases, as do rents: buildings here fetch more than $34 per square foot and vacancy rates are below 10 percent.
“Preston Center is the city’s most sought-after submarket,” Dan Dubrowski, Founding Partner at Lionstone Investments, said in a statement.
“Preston Center is one of the hottest submarkets. Occupancy rates are high in every tower, and there’s not a lot of land left to build on,” said Jennifer Smart, PegasusAblon marketing communications director. “The time seemed right.”
