Aptim Corp., the spin-off company created two years ago from the capital services division of the former CB&I, is marketing more than half of the office space in its Essen Lane building for sublease.
The company is listing more than 140,000 square feet of space on five of the 12 floors in the 240,000-square-foot building, originally built as the high-end headquarters of The Shaw Group. Mike Wampold, who developed the building in 2003, continues to own the property.
Asking price for the class A space is between $24.50-$26.50 per square foot, according to a marketing brochure.
The timing of the listing is hardly ideal. Occupancy rates among class A buildings are averaging about 85.6%—and just 83% in the Essen/Bluebonnet corridor, where the building is located. What’s more, some 120,000 square feet of sublease inventory was dumped on the market in 2018.
But Bill Sanders of Beau Box Commercial Real Estate, which is marketing the building, says despite the excess supply of class A, multistory space, there is considerable interest in the building, both because so much contiguous space is available and because the property is so well known.
“We’ve had some really big users emerge out of the woodwork and reach out to us,” Sanders says. “Whenever you have that much space available, you do generate a lot of interest. Plus, it’s one of the hottest submarkets.”
It is unclear why Aptim no longer needs so much space, if ever it did, or whether there have been any layoffs at the Essen Lane offices. Aptim laid off more than 200 workers in Texas in 2018 but never filed a notice of significant layoffs with the Louisiana Workforce Commission.
Multiple calls and to the company’s spokesman were not returned.
