The Howard Hughes Corp. has announced that Western Midstream Partners has signed a 133,948-square-foot lease in a Class A+ office high rise at The Woodlands Towers at The Waterway in Houston. The company will occupy five floors in the 31-story skyscraper. Cushman & Wakefield assisted the tenant, while Colliers International represented the owner. This commitment brings the 595,000-square-foot building to an occupancy rate of 35 percent. The tenant is expected to move into the tower in November, with the owner providing temporary space as early as April. Later this year, Howard Hughes will also relocate from its Dallas headquarters to The Woodlands. Located at 9950 Woodloch Forest Drive, the LEED Silver-certified building was completed in 2014. Amenities include a lobby cafe, two-level fitness facility with a basketball and volleyball court, conference rooms and a 33,000-square-foot rooftop terrace. Situated close to Interstate 45, the high-rise is 20 miles from George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Click to read more at www.cpexecutive.com.

Which commercial real estate sector will escape the COVID-19 pandemic with the least amount of damage? According to a new report from commercial real estate researcher Yardi Matrix, multifamily is best poised to weather the pandemic. This isn’t to say, though, that even this sector won’t suffer. Plenty of tenants will struggle to pay their rent. Law enforcement throughout the country has vowed to put a hold on evictions. And many tenants won’t be able to absorb rent increases. These factors will all hit the bottom lines of apartment owners and operators, according to Yardi Matrix’s Economic and Coronavirus Update National Multifamily Report. According to the report, the multifamily sector remains well-capitalized and strong enough to weather a modest slowdown. The report, though, also says that owners and operators might face short-term rent-collection issues if the economy slumps too badly. And value-add projects will likely slow. Yardi Matrix predicts that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will last three to six months before a steady recovery boosts the economy once again. Click to read more at www.rejournals.com.

Leaders of the real estate industry are asking the federal government to help them weather the market slowdown caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic. On March 18, Compass founder and CEO Robert Reffkin sent a letter to Congressional leadership asking for specific consideration for real estate agents and other independent contractors in any coronavirus relief package. Reffkin, head of the Softbank-backed real estate firm, wrote that the roughly 2 million real estate agents in the United States, according to National Association of Realtors figures, make a gross median income of approximately $41,800 a year before taxes, and have seen business severely contract amid shelter-in-place policies and social distancing. “When they can’t show a property, they can’t earn a living,” he says. The letter claims that this industry is uniquely damaged by the economic fallout from this pandemic, and highlights how both the pandemic itself and a general slowdown in activity will likely impact homesellers and homebuyers for the foreseeable future. The industry is older, with 63 percent of agents over 50 years of age. The incentive structure of real estate sales also presents a challenge; agents will only earn commission after a sale. That means that even after the economy begins to resume normal operations once social distancing measures are deemed no longer necessary, agents will have to wait to make a sale before earning anything, extending their period of operating without an income. Click to read more at www.curbed.com.