Vacant Office Buildings In Former Greenspoint Exxon Mobil Campus Slated For Auction

Lincoln Property Co. is marketing two vacant, renovated Class-A office buildings to be sold at auction next month, according to online listings. 

The properties, CityNorth 1 and CityNorth 6, are both part of the former Exxon Mobil campus in the Greenspoint submarket. Dallas-based Lincoln Property Co. acquired the six-building complex in 2017, two years after Exxon moved out, when it had the highest office vacancy rate in the city. 

Lincoln Property Co. pumped $80M into renovating the office complex. It is now inviting bids to start at $7 per SF, The Real Deal reported. CityNorth 1, a 12-story, 254K SF building at 233 Benmar Drive, has a $1.85M starting bid, according to the listing.

CityNorth 6, a 14-story, 356K SF building at 12450 Greenspoint Drive, has a starting bid of $2.4M, the listing shows.

The online auctions for both buildings are slated for Feb. 10 through Feb. 12, though this is not the first time the buildings have been listed for sale.

Lincoln Property Co. put CityNorth 1 on the market in April 2021 with an asking price of $25.4M, according to the Houston Business Journal. CityNorth 1 was valued at just $5.5M last year, according to Harris Central Appraisal District, while CityNorth 6 was valued at $7.6M.

Both buildings were originally set to be auctioned off last month, and nearby CityNorth 5 was set to be auctioned off in September, according to the sale listings from Colliers.

CityNorth 5 is no longer being marketed with the other properties, David Carter told Bisnow. Carter, a principal, director and executive vice president for Colliers, is the broker for the properties.

CityNorth 1 and 6 are “extremely nice properties,” and Lincoln Property Co. has done an excellent job renovating them, Carter said.

“We have a lot of people interested in them, just not a lot of people willing to bid on them,” he said. 

The market has not turned enough to get the properties the attention they deserve, Carter said.

“I’m not sure next month is going to make it happen,” he said. “We have a lot of people interested in them, it’s just hard to carry vacant office buildings of these statures. It’s very, very expensive.” 

Lincoln Property Co. added a fitness center, a 100K SF conference center and a 6K SF entertainment facility with a golf simulator during its $80M complex upgrade that wrapped up in 2019, the HBJ reported.

The 36-acre campus has more than 2M SF, including about 50K SF of retail, Chron reported.