Stream, AustralianSuperTake Control of Houston Center

1 May 2025

The keys to Houston’s largest office complex went back to lender AustralianSuper.

The Melbourne-based pension fund, in a joint venture with Dallas-based Stream Realty Partners, took control of Houston Center after loaning Brookfield Properties $219 million to buy the property in 2017, Bisnow reported.

The terms of the deal weren’t disclosed; the Harris Central Appraisal District most recently valued the 4.6 million-square-foot campus, which includes four office towers, at nearly $700 million.

Brookfield acquired the campus — at 1221 McKinney Street, 909 Fannin Street, 1301 McKinney Street and 1331 Lamar Street — for $875 million in 2017, and poured millions into a sweeping renovation that included lobby and plaza upgrades, fitness and conference centers, new retail space and revamped facades and skybridges.

Despite the renovation, Houston Center is currently about half occupied, said Stream Realty’s Ryan Barbles.

LyondellBasell left behind 358,000 square feet when it ditched its namesake building at Houston Center for Williams Tower in 2023. Norton Rose Fulbright, which occupied 350,000 square feet at 3 Houston Center (formerly Norton Rose Fulbright Tower), vacated last year.

The priority for Stream, which will lead leasing and operations at the property, is to backfill the LyondellBasel space, Barbles said. Downtown typically attracts professional services firms and oil and gas companies, he said.

Stream has some momentum to work with. NRG Energy is now preparing to move its headquarters into 245,000 square feet at 3 Houston Center.

The deal reflects the challenges that continue to plague Houston’s office market, especially in the downtown submarket.

Though the office market as a whole posted a nearly 8,000-square-foot positive net absorption for the first quarter of 2025, that wasn’t the case for the central business district, where net absorption was negative 438,000 square feet, according to a recent Partners report.

Vacancy ticked up between the fourth quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025 to 26.5 percent from 26.1 percent.

— Judah Duke