Listen to this article 5 min
Dallas-based law firm Winstead PC has moved out of the iconic Frost Bank Tower and relocated to a newer office building in the Central Business District.
After 20 years in Frost Bank Tower, Winstead signed a lease at the Horizon Bank building in 2023 and moved into its new space in early May, said Jordan Ware, managing shareholder at the Austin office. The new office will allow for greater collaboration, she added.
The move comes at a time of slow leasing activity downtown. Buildings such as the "sail tower" and Sixth and Guadalupe — leased by Google LLC and Meta Platforms Inc., respectively — contain hundreds of thousands of square feet of unoccupied office space, while new and proposed office construction is at a near standstill. But while big tech is still struggling to come to grips with its real estate needs in a post-pandemic world, financial services and law firms, such as Winstead, are leading the return-to-office charge, experts have said.
“We had been at our location on Congress Ave for 20 years,” Ware said. “[Frost Bank Tower] was a great building and location for us. As the city evolved, so did the firm, and we are excited to move to a new and growing part of downtown Austin.”
The new office lease is for over 40,000 square feet spread across two-and-a-quarter floors in the Horizon Bank building at 600 W. Fifth St.
Jeff Bates, a real estate attorney at Winstead, worked on the lease. Winstead representatives declined to disclose terms of the lease.
It was also unclear how much space Winstead leased at Frost Bank Tower. The law firm, which ranked No. 5 among Austin-area firms in ABJ's latest list research, has roughly 97 staff members, including 55 attorneys, in Austin.
“The offices are designed to provide greater efficiencies in layout, office and workspace, conference rooms and meeting areas, all allowing for greater collaboration,” Ware said.
And while hiring new employees was not the main motivator for the move, the new office will allow Winstead to attract the "best" talent to meet its clients’ needs, Ware said.
Earlier this year, San Jose-based Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) also signed a roughly 27,400-square-foot lease at the Horizon Bank building, which has 150,000 square feet of Class A office space, according to its website.
Frost Bank Tower, at 401 Congress Ave., is the second-largest multi-tenant office building in Austin with over 535,000 square feet of rentable space across 33 floors, according to ABJ list research. Its unique design has made it a notable part of downtown's growing skyline.
And Winstead isn’t the only longtime tenant with plans to go elsewhere. Tenants Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Vista Equity Partners have pre-leased space in the yet-to-be-complete The Republic office tower on Fourth Street, the most expensive street in the city for office leases.
Heritage Title Company of Austin Inc. also leased space at Indeed Tower, a massive office skyscraper on West Sixth Street, in 2020 after almost two decades at Frost Bank Tower.
Austin-area office tenant s.f. leased
| Rank | Prior Rank | Person |
|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | Burns, Lexie |
2 | 2 | Stricklen, Nate |
3 | 3 | Gump, John |
