Station Place

Downtown Indianapolis

Case Study

CHALLENGE

In 2003, our team took over the leasing of Station Placed, a 100,000 SF Class B office building in the heart of downtown Indianapolis.  This building has a lot of character, but its major downfall was the lack of windows in many suites, along with virtually no parking.  With only 65% occupancy, we had to create an innovative and novel plan in order to deal with the structural issues impending this building’s success.

ACTION

It was evident to us that a redesign of the stale, windowless vacant spaces, was a must.  The elevator lobbies were approximately 1,000 SF with tremendous window exposure and views.  We proposed to ownership that reconfiguring this space was an absolute necessity.  Being able to incorporate the “dead” space from the lobbies and turn it into rentable square footage with visible window lines allowed for a complete transformation and refurbishment of more than half of the building.

  • Marketing efforts were focused on the connectivity of Station Place to the largest shopping center in Indianapolis, Circle Center Mall, which allowed for subsidized parking as well as direct access to the State House, Indianapolis Convention Center, several hotels, and many other downtown attractions.
  • By reducing the lobby sizes on each floor, we were able to create thousands of added square feet and substantially increase the NOI.
  • Broker Open Houses were held along with tours, phone calls to the brokerage community, and heavy email marketing to spread the word of the newly redesigned spaces.

RESULTS

With the two main concepts of increased visibility and parking availability, our team was able to fill the building to an unprecedented 100%.  The Indianapolis CBD market is typically 16% vacancy, allowing Station Place to stand out as a completely full, multi-tenant property.  We took the building from 65% to 100% in under two years.  Tenants continue to grow and expand, forcing us to turn down smaller tenants wanting to renew.  Station Place had been at 100% occupancy for several years as we now prepare to market it to the investment sector as a CAP rate sale.