WORLD PROPERTY CHANNEL ®

Five years after purchasing the 1.3 million-square-foot, 50-story 1400 Smith Street office tower, Brookfield Office Properties. (BPO: NYSE, TSX)  sold the Downtown Houston property to its lead tenant, Chevron, for $340 million or $262 per square foot.

Toronto-based Brookfield had paid $120 million or $92 per square foot for the property in 2006 when it was known as Four Allen Center.

Soon after acquisition, Brookfield leased the entire building to Chevron in what at the time was the largest lease transaction in North America in more than five years, according to Brookfield.

Chevron occupies 311,000 square feet at neighboring Continental Center I (1600 Smith Street). The oil company has renewed the lease for seven years.

"This sale is reflective of our ongoing strategy of recycling capital from mature assets into more accretive opportunities," Ric Clark, chief executive officer of Brookfield Office Properties, said in a news release.

"We have created significant value through the sale of this stabilized asset concurrent with Chevron's sizeable lease extension at our adjacent property," said Dennis Friedrich, president and global chief investment officer of Brookfield Office Properties.

"Chevron represents the type of top-flight corporate tenant we seek to partner with in our global energy-sector markets."

Brookfield Office Properties owns, develops and manages premier office properties in the United States, Canada and Australia.

Its portfolio is comprised of interests in 109 properties totaling 78 million square feet in the downtown cores of New York, Washington, D.C., Houston, Los Angeles, Toronto, Calgary, Ottawa, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, making it the global leader in the ownership and management of office assets.

Landmark properties include the World Financial Center in Manhattan, Brookfield Place in Toronto, Bank of America Plaza in Los Angeles, Bankers Hall in Calgary, Darling Park in Sydney and City Square in Perth.

The company's common shares trade on the NYSE and TSX under the symbol BPO.  

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