{"id":660659,"date":"2026-03-16T22:45:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T22:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/660659\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T22:45:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T22:45:14","slug":"lincoln-plans-spec-office-lab-in-houston-it-just-needs-a-lender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/660659\/","title":{"rendered":"Lincoln Plans Spec Office, Lab In Houston. It Just Needs A Lender"},"content":{"rendered":"

Developing a speculative office building in one of the country\u2019s most vacant office markets may not sound desirable to financiers, but Lincoln Property Co.<\/a>\u00a0has a public-private partnership and significant experience on its side.<\/p>\n

\"Placeholder\"\/<\/p>\n

\n Courtesy of HKS\/Neoscape\n <\/p>\n

\n A rendering of the Arc at the Ion District\n <\/p>\n

Lincoln is developing The Arc at the Ion District<\/a>, a nearly 200K SF research, laboratory and office building to be anchored by Rice University<\/a>. The estimated cost has not been publicized, but the company is counting on the partnership, liquid debt markets and its own confidence in the project to help it secure financing and\u00a0potentially break ground next quarter<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The company\u00a0is always looking for viable development opportunities, but this one arose when Rice reached out to several developers, including Lincoln, Executive Vice President Gabe Lerner<\/a> said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of experience working with public groups that need to understand how the funding mechanisms and infrastructure get put into place,\u201d Lerner told Bisnow.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are not many groups that can say they\u2019ve done multiple private-public partnerships nationally and have the kind of development chops that we do,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

That partnership, plus\u00a0the strength of debt markets\u00a0right now<\/a>, should help the project secure construction financing, Lerner said. A third party is beginning outreach on debt options this month, and early conversations have been promising, with Rice\u2019s involvement working to\u00a0Lincoln’s\u00a0advantage.<\/p>\n

It also helps that Lincoln is willing to invest in the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cLincoln, unlike some other larger developers, puts their own skin in the game,\u201d Lerner said. \u201cThat helps get equity comfortable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Equity is largely still sitting on the sidelines, being selective, and requiring more information to become confident in their investments than ever before. Lincoln has\u00a0received questions about the\u00a0building’s life sciences<\/a>\u00a0component, since life sciences development is currently seen as a high-risk investment\u00a0nationally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The life sciences space in Boston, the largest lab market in the country, was\u00a0more than one-third vacant<\/a>\u00a0at the end of the third quarter, following a surge in\u00a0development over the past five years. Houston also took a gamble in\u00a0developing significant life sciences space<\/a> in recent years but found it paying off with proportional demand<\/a>\u00a0and an investment from pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s yet to be determined how much lab and life sciences space versus office will be in The Arc<\/a>, Lerner said, adding that they are building in the capability for some spaces to be flexible based on market conditions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Placeholder\"\/<\/p>\n

\n Bisnow\/Maddy McCarty\n <\/p>\n

\n The Ion in the former Sears building in Midtown Houston\n <\/p>\n

The Arc will be part of the second phase of Rice University\u2019s 12-block Ion District. The innovation-focused hub is in Midtown Houston<\/a>, a submarket with about 15% office vacancy, much less than Greater Houston\u2019s 26.5%, according to Avison Young<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Houston’s office vacancy rate is still higher than the national average of 20.5% at the end of Q4 2025, per Cushman & Wakefield<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Midtown offers proximity to Downtown and the Texas Medical Center, a critical component of Houston’s\u00a0growing life sciences ecosystem<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Arc will share its plaza with\u00a0The Ion District<\/a>‘s\u00a0main building, a 287K SF adaptive reuse of a former Sears department store\u00a0with 50K SF of space for events and programming in addition to office, academic and restaurant space. The district also includes Greentown Labs<\/a>, a 30K SF climate tech startup incubator.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The former department store building is more than 90% leased, with tenants including\u00a0Chevron<\/a>,\u00a0Microsoft<\/a>, Aramco\u00a0and BP<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The developers anticipate delivering The Arc in the first quarter of 2028. It will add to an extremely limited office development pipeline in Houston, with only 582K SF under construction, according to Avison Young<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rice is driving an attractive redevelopment of the entire area, which made The Arc an enticing opportunity for Lincoln, Lerner said. Rice will be a lead tenant at The Arc, occupying nearly 30K SF of office and lab space for its faculty and students.<\/p>\n

Within Midtown, the Ion building was a needle mover, and more development will likely follow.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have a university, like Rice University, that is building a district, and you see what their vision and plans are for the future, that\u2019s one box easily checked,\u201d Lerner said. \u201cYes, I want to be a part of that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Developing a speculative office building in one of the country\u2019s most vacant office markets may not sound desirable…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":660660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5130],"tags":[275377,44622,2174,127425,38592,4345,279700,27531,112871,112869,279699,16382,358,82592,279701,70539,3187],"class_list":["post-660659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-aramco","tag-avison-young","tag-capital-markets","tag-gabe-lerner","tag-greentown-labs","tag-houston","tag-ion-district","tag-life-sciences","tag-lincoln-property-co","tag-lincoln-property-company","tag-midtown-houston","tag-rice-university","tag-texas","tag-the-arc","tag-the-arc-at-the-ion-district","tag-the-ion","tag-tx"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116241283732036117","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}