Energy Corridor Office High-Rise To Hit The Block At Foreclosure Auction
Pacific Life Insurance is moving to foreclose on a $70M loan backed by Four Westlake Park, a 588K SF office building in Houston's Energy Corridor.
The 20-story building is scheduled to be sold at auction Oct. 3, according to Harris County online foreclosure documents filed last week. The borrower that defaulted on the $70M loan is Four Westlake Owner, a limited liability company tied to Philadelphia-based Treeview Real Estate Advisors, the documents show.
Four Westlake Park is part of the 53-acre Westlake Park, which was developed by Hines and is home to BP’s North American headquarters at One Westlake Park. BP also leased office space in Four Westlake before placing the entire building on the sublease market in July 2016. BP’s lease in the building was set to expire in June.
Treeview Real Estate Advisors bought the building from Falcon Real Estate in February 2020, which is also when it secured the $70M loan from Pacific Life Insurance, according to Harris County records. Pacific Life Insurance didn't respond to a request for comment.
Attempts to reach Teresa Tsai, who is listed as the founder and CEO of Treeview Real Estate Advisors on LinkedIn, were unsuccessful Tuesday afternoon.
The property had an appraised value of about $86M as of December 2022, according to Harris County Appraisal District records.
The foreclosure action isn't the only trouble Westlake Park buildings have encountered in recent years. Three Westlake Park was transferred to special servicing in October 2018 and became real estate-owned in July 2019, Bisnow previously reported. BP had occupied more than 40% of that property, but it vacated in 2015. The building completely emptied out when ConocoPhillips’ lease expired in 2019.
Three Westlake sold at a $67.4M loss in early 2022 after sitting vacant throughout most of the pandemic.
Westlake One flooded during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, displacing BP for more than a year, though the company used it as an opportunity to remodel.
Despite Westlake Park's struggles, energy leasing remains strong in Houston, with energy and utility companies capturing the largest share of office leasing in 2022. As of May of this year, the Energy Corridor had captured 14% of office leases over 10K SF, Bisnow previously reported. Another 12% went to Westchase, and Memorial City got 7%.
Early this year, Kiewit Engineering Group leased 277K SF in Energy Center I in the Energy Corridor submarket. Wood Group renewed a 226K SF lease in the same submarket late last year.
