Los Angeles-based CBRE (NYSE: CBRE) has added two real estate professionals to its health care and life sciences group in Houston, bolstering one of the few office practices that has seen continued leasing activity amid the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic and the associated oil and gas downturn this year.
Wesley Hightower, formerly with the Houston office of Dallas-based Stream Realty Partners, joined CBRE as a vice president. Emily Friedlander, who was previously with the Houston office of Chicago-based JLL (NYSE: JLL), joined as a senior associate, according to a press release.
CBRE said Hightower and Friedlander will partner with the firm’s health care and life sciences team of Brandy Bellow Spinks, Scott Carter and Nelson Udstuen.
“Our health and life sciences practice has grown significantly over the past few years,” said Mark Taylor, a senior managing director with CBRE. “Health care real estate has proven resilient in the midst of the pandemic. Wesley and Emily’s experience and proven track record will be a tremendous advantage for our team as we close out 2020. We expect additional growth in 2021 for mid-market investment sale opportunities and life science assignments of behalf of both landlords and tenants, and Wesley and Emily will be able to jump right in.”
Hightower’s practice focuses primarily on tenant representation and investment sales in the health care and life sciences sector. In his previous role, he was responsible for helping to grow Stream Realty Partners’ health care service group in addition to handling investment sales, business development, leasing and marketing.
Prior to Stream Realty Partners, Hightower was a senior analyst at Dallas-based HFF, which was acquired by JLL in July 2019. During his nearly seven-year tenure at HFF, he was part of more than 65 transactions, totaling more than $3.2 billion in volume.
Meanwhile, Friedlander will be focused on leasing medical and laboratory buildings as well as advising health care, academic and research organizations on their real estate decisions.
She will work on the tenant representation side of the business, focusing on strategic occupier advisory throughout the Houston region.
CBRE’s move to deepen its bench of health care and life sciences professionals comes at a time when both industries are not only faring well during the pandemic and energy downturn, they’re also significantly expanding in Houston — and the city’s real estate firms are trying to keep up.
Unlike other segments of Houston’s office market, which have seen leasing activity plummet in the wake of Covid-19, leases are still being signed by health care and life sciences tenants.
Additionally, several major development projects planned for the city are expected to drive interest among health care and life sciences companies looking to move to Houston.
As Chris Wadley, who heads JLL’s life sciences, health care and higher education practice for the Gulf Coast region, recently told the Houston Business Journal, the hundreds of thousands of square feet of new research facilities under construction in Houston have made the Bayou City a target for many companies’ future expansion plans.
Wadley cited Rice University’s $100 million, 300,000-square-foot The Ion innovation hub as just one example of some of the investments in research real estate underway in the city. In August, The Ion signed its first tenant: California-based energy giant Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX).
He also cited Texas A&M University’s planned $550M Texas Medical Center campus, which broke ground earlier this month; Houston-based Hines and 2ML Real Estate Interests’ 52-acre, mixed-use Levit Green development in the TMC, which will cater to research tenants; and the Medical Center’s $1.5 billion TMC3 expansion project as helping to drive interest in Houston from companies that do not yet have a local presence.
Developers outside of the TMC area also are banking on health care and life sciences.
Houston-based McCord Development recently opened an office in greater Boston with the acquisition of a former GlaxoSmithKline facility, which the company said will aid in its effort to grow its life sciences business in both Boston and Houston.
In September, McCord announced plans to add a 101,000-square-foot, five-story medical office building in Generation Park, the company's 4,200-acre master planned development.
In August, McCord announced it hired Shawn Cloonan as general counsel in the company’s Houston office. Cloonan was previously the COO of the Texas Medical Center. In his new role, Cloonan has been tasked with overseeing the company's legal aspects, advancing life science initiatives and advising on strategic development projects.