Gabriel Barbier-Mueller’s Harwood International has been gritting its teeth through the pain of losing key assets in its namesake district to distress with the hope that the future — and the office projects to come — will be brighter.
Greener pastures for the Uptown landlord are now less certain, after law firm Jones Day, which was supposed to anchor the upcoming Harwood No. 15, at 3008 North Harwood, has pulled out of the project, a source close to the deal confirmed.
Jones Day currently occupies 133,000 square feet at Harwood No. 3, a 210,000-square-foot building at 2727 North Harwood and one of the last buildings in the 30-acre Harwood District that Harwood International still owns. The law firm had planned to move into a 73,000-square-foot block at Harwood No. 15 as the building’s lead tenant.
“They’re back in the market evaluating their options,” said Steve Triolet, Senior Vice President of Research & Market Forecasting at Partners Real Estate.
Harwood shared plans for its latest development, Harwood No. 15, in 2023. The 23-story, 340,000-square-foot office building was expected to cost $120 million, or $353 per square foot. According to a Nov. 2024 filing, Harwood was supposed to start construction on the building in January and complete it by June 2027.
Construction hasn’t started; instead, the firm has spent the year struggling to stabilize its existing portfolio and eventually started offloading its remaining properties to San Francisco-based private equity firm TPG, The Real Deal first reported.
Harwood was hit with three building foreclosures this year.
It nearly lost Harwood No.6 to foreclosure in January but saved the building, known as Saint Ann Court, with a recapitalization deal.
Harwood handed back the keys to Harwood No. 4 in April after allegedly defaulting on an $80 million mortgage tied to the building. San Francisco-based Spear Street Capital took back that 221,000-square-foot property in a $73 million credit bid.
Harwood lost a second office building to foreclosure in November, when it was forced to give up its first development, Harwood No. 1, at 2651 North Harwood Street.
Just before handing over the keys to Harwood No. 1, Harwood quietly sold off four of its office properties to TPG, deed records show. The three properties span 892,000 square feet of Uptown office space.
- Harwood No. 2, at 2728 North Harwood Street, a 10-story, 178,000-square-foot property that was completed in 1996. It’s appraised at $58.3 million.
- Harwood No. 6 (also known as Saint Ann Court), a 26-story, 320,000-square-foot office building that opened in 2009 at 2501 North Harwood Street. It’s valued at $160 million.
- Harwood No. 7 (also known as Frost Tower), at 2950 North Harwood Street, a 22-story office property with 167,000 square feet of space. It’s appraised at $83.5 million.
- The 22-story 227,000-square-foot Harwood No. 10, at 2850 North Harwood Street, was delivered in 2019. It’s valued at $120 million.
The sales were recorded in the fall, a few months after Harwood tapped Newmark to help it find equity partners and debt for the next phase of Harwood District.
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