Stream Realty Partners takes on property, construction management at 14-story office tower in Houston

Stream Realty Partners has been awarded the leasing, property management and construction management of 4265 San Felipe. The 14-story, 208,696-square-foot office tower, acquired by DML Capital, is located in Houston’s sought-after Galleria submarket inside Loop 610.

Stream Senior Vice President Brad Fricks and Vice President Matt Asvestas will oversee the leasing on behalf of DML Capital.

4265 San Felipe boasts stunning 360-degree views of Houston. The attractive window line provides ample natural light and visibility to the CBD, Greenway, Med Center, and Galleria skylines. On-site, there are a variety of premier amenities, including The Oasis, a covered outdoor space equipped with a putting green, comfortable seating, a TV, and a state-of-the-art cooling system.

On the sixth floor, The Getaway offers tenants a relaxing lounge environment with complimentary WiFi, TV, drinks, and snacks. Level 10 of the building features a state-of-the-art training room and executive-style boardroom for tenants. The building’s convenient Galleria/Inner Loop location provides easy access to Houston’s top restaurants, shops, and lifestyle destinations. The property has onsite management and maintains 24/7 security.

Available spaces range from 1,500 SF to 17,423 square feet. The building has move-in-ready speculative spaces and monument signage available for certain users.

How will AI change commercial real estate? JLL Falcon provides early clues

AI is bringing big changes to industries across the country. It’s little surprise, then, that AI is changing the way commercial real estate professionals work, too.

An example? JLL‘s new JLL Falcon, the commercial real estate company’s artificial intelligence platform designed to serve JLL commercial real estate professionals and their clients.

JLL Falcon is made up of a suite of AI-enabled software services that JLL professionals can use to compile research for their clients, pull key information quickly out of massive reports, quickly write emails, provide workplace planning advice to clients, improve the efficiency of buildings and generate 3D leasing visualizations.

And the best part? JLL Falcon’s services aren’t designed to replace company employees. They’re designed to make them more efficient.

“People here understand that this is a way to make employees more effective in their jobs. It’s not about taking away their jobs. We want to give them the tech they need to focus on what they are good at,” said Yao Morin, chief technology officer of JLL. “These services free people up to brainstorm with clients, to understand what their clients need. Nobody needs to sit for hours to scroll through a document to find one piece of information. AI can do that for you.”

Yao Morin, chief technology officer, JLL

One of the services offered through JLL Flacon is JLL GPT. This program allows brokers and other JLL professionals to quickly draft documents, summarize documents and brainstorm ideas. They can also turn to JLL GPT to quickly comb through the reams of data that JLL harvests and then use that data to help their clients make key real estate decisions.

The Falcon suite of services also includes an AI-enabled assistant. Morin says that this service can help JLL employees whose first language is not English quickly translate from their local languages to English, an important service considering how much of JLL’s business is conducted in the language.

Falcon includes tailor-made chatbots that employees can use to pull specific information quickly from documents that might stretch for 30 pages or more.

“We deal with a lot of contracts and leases,” Morin said. “Sometimes you want something extracted quickly from a document. We have a tool that does that.”

On Nov. 12, JLL introduced the latest tool in the Falcon suite, JLL Azara. This tool is designed to make it easier for business professionals to access and use corporate real estate and facilities management data.

JLL Azara uses natural language queries so that facilities managers and business analysts can research complicated topics such as portfolio optimization and occupancy planning.

In its pilot testing, JLL Azara quickly showed its promise. According to a press release from JLL, the application’s conversational interface played a key role in helping a company identify a no-fault work order volume anomaly at one of its locations. The company was able to take quick action to solve the problem before it became a more expensive one.

“With JLL Azara, we’re able to put valuable data, decades of client queries and deep industry knowledge directly into the hands of our customers,” said Sharad Rastogi, JLL’s chief executive officer of Work Dynamics Technology.

“JLL Falcon is about reducing the time it takes for business leaders and JLL professionals to make decisions,” Morin said. “Opportunities can come and go quickly. You don’t want to sit on data and wait for a long time. You don’t want to wait for an analyst to turn that data around. You could lose that opportunity if you do.”

Before tools such as JLL Falcon, real estate professionals often had to read through 300 pages of documents to get the information they were seeking, Morin said.

Falcon eliminates that busy work.

“Now, you can ask a question and it will bring you to the right place,” Morin said. “It will summarize the answer to your question and bring you to the right paragraph if you want to cross check the information.”

Morin said that JLL employees have bought into the suite of AI-powered tools. As of the writing of this story, more than 47,000 JLL workers have used JLL GPT alone, Morin said. More than 25,000 use it monthly.

And the future of AI? Morin says that commercial real estate companies have only begun to use this tool.

“We are in a unique position to adopt technology that can advance the efficiency of buildings and help our clients meet the sustainability goals that they have,” Morin said. “We are just starting with that. There is a lot more that we can do.”

Morin compares AI to the early days of the Internet and smartphones. There was a time when most people looked at those tools as a luxury. Today, people rely on them in their daily lives.

“I predict that AI will be something that commercial real estate professionals will not be able to live without,” Morin said. “Just look at smartphones. You’re more upset if you leave your home without your smartphone than you are if you leave without your wallet. This AI technology is similar: It will soon become a part of life. It’s already a part of my life.”

JLL Capital Markets negotiates sale of 1.39-million-square-foot logistics park in Kyle

JLL Capital Markets closed the sale of Kyle 35 Logistics Park, a newly constructed 1,392,379-square-foot industrial park in Kyle, Texas, located in the rapidly growing corridor between Austin and San Antonio.

JLL represented the seller, Alliance Industrial Company. MDH Partners acquired the asset.

Completed in 2023, Kyle 35 Logistics Park consists of five state-of-the-art industrial Class A buildings ranging from 140,300 to 474,397 square feet. It features 36- to 40-foot clear heights, ESFR sprinkler systems, ample parking and other modern amenities sought after by industrial tenants. The property is 100% leased to Tesla, Inc., one of the world’s leading electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers and advanced technology companies.

Strategically positioned on Interstate 35, one of the most vital north-south thoroughfares in Texas, Kyle 35 Logistics Park offers exceptional connectivity between Mexico, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth and beyond to the North Central region of the US. The property’s location provides tenants with access to a growing population of over 25 million people within a five-hour drive.

Additionally, Kyle, Texas has experienced tremendous growth, nearly doubling in size over the past decade. The city combines convenient proximity to Austin’s economic advantages with the benefits of a more affordable, yet rapidly densifying suburb.

The JLL Capital Markets team representing the seller was led by Trent Agnew, Witt Westbrook, Kyle Mueller, Charlie Strauss and Tom Weber. 

The NRP Group celebrates opening of 318-unit affordable-housing community in Austin

The NRP Group in partnership with the Housing Authority of the City of Austin announced the opening of Bridge at Estancia, a 318-unit affordable housing community in Austin, Texas.

The development provides quality, amenity-rich housing for residents earning up to 60 percent of the Area Median Income.

Located at 1100 Avenida Mercado Street, near the intersection of Interstate 35 and State Highway 45, Bridge at Estancia offers easy access to downtown Austin and is part of the Estancia Hill Country master plan, a 600-acre mixed-use development. The community sits adjacent to the planned Texas Children’s Hospital, as well as future commercial and retail spaces, and additional housing developments.

Designed by HEDK Architects, Bridge at Estancia features a mix of one- to four-bedroom units, catering to both individuals and growing families. Apartments include private patios or balconies, high ceilings, vinyl plank flooring, and fully equipped kitchens with quartz countertops and recessed lighting.

In partnership with the nonprofit Community Housing Resource Partners, Bridge at Estancia has a dedicated activity room to host resident services such as health screenings, after-school programming, financial literacy training, a first-time homebuyer program, English as a Second Languages courses and more. Best-in-class amenities include a swimming pool, fitness center, multiple playgrounds, and walking trails integrated into the wider Estancia Hill Country trail network.

The 15-acre site features two four-story buildings, two three-story walk-ups, and a two-level parking garage. Residents will enjoy outdoor spaces such as an open courtyard, barbecue grills, and an outdoor pool with a sundeck. Additionally, a large coworking space filled with natural light offers computers, desks, and comfortable reading nooks ideal for remote workers and students.

This fully affordable housing community was made possible by a $20 million housing tax credit investment from Hudson Housing Capital, along with construction and permanent financing provided by Bellwether Enterprises and Deutsche Bank.

Marcus & Millichap brokers sale of 769-unit self-storage facility in Allen

Marcus & Millichap closed the sale of Extra Space Storage, a 769-unit self-storage facility in Allen, Texas. 

Built in 2019, the 80,421-square-foot facility is located at 820 S. Greenville Ave., at the signalized intersection of Bethany Drive and South Greenville Avenue.

The three-story property includes 769 fully climate-controlled units and has maintained historically high occupancy levels. 

Adolfson & Peterson Construction finishes work on 65-acre logistics hub in Fort Worth

Adolfson & Peterson Construction completed construction for Transwestern’s Mid Cities Logistics, a massive 65-acre logistics hub in southeast Fort Worth, Texas.

AP broke ground on the Mid Cities Logistics development in February 2023. The project was designed by Richardson-based Alliance Architects. At full build-out, the industrial property contains five structures totaling 908,300 square feet of core and shell distribution buildings.

The new Mid Cities Logistics building is located in southeast Fort Worth at the intersection of Buttercup and Boswell Drive. Noteworthy project elements include 400,000 square feet of tilt wall panels, 52,675 cubic yards of concrete and 9,500 linear feet of retaining walls. All five buildings provide tenants opportunities for storage, distribution facilities and light manufacturing.