ECR was hired by Brickman in December of 2012 to provide proactive marketing and leasing services for Lavaca Plaza. At the time of Brickman’s acquisition and hiring ECR, the property had many significant vacancies and was losing its largest tenant to take occupancy well below the 50% level. The ownership needed immediate leasing activity and a firm that could effectively market the remodel plans for the property to create momentum and help Lavaca Plaza reach its maximum performance.
Strategy
ECR developed an aggressive marketing and leasing strategy targeted towards re-introducing Lavaca Plaza to the marketplace and showcasing the coming improvements. The strategy consisted of the following:
Utilized ECR’s in-house marketing resources to design creative marketing materials that were unique to the industry for the property, including custom marketing videos and a new brand for the property.
Worked with the ownership to finalize high-quality renderings of the planned improvements, new signage, future amenities, and set up an attractive marketing center within the building to showcase the “New” Lavaca Plaza.
Created and practiced a professional property tour through the project boasting the new offering and hosted the best tour experience possible through the pre-construction and construction phase.
Hosted private lunches with active office leasing brokers to tour the property and planned improvements.
Strategically executed a direct call, email, and internet marketing campaign targeted towards the brokerage community as well as directly to tenant prospects.
Provided a three-part direct mail campaign to brokers and tenants to educate on the plans and construction process.
Followed up with all leads and opportunities consistently, aggressively and effectively.
Proactively met with existing tenants to help expand and address renewals early on and to aggressively get in front of new leasing for tenants that were unlikely to renew.
Strategically created spec suites for immediate occupancy for many smaller office suites and demolished many spaces to open them up for new users to better visualize.
Hosted a brokerage event once the improvements were complete to showcase the building and remaining vacancies, which was attended by more than 60 office brokers.
ECR did an impressive job leasing Lavaca Plaza, bringing in plenty of creative tenants. We were very pleased with their ability to land multiple deals that previously wouldn’t have considered Lavaca Plaza. As an out-of-town investor, we relied on ECR to be our representative and they were more than thorough in that capacity.
Aaron Lazovik
Brickman
Results
ECR executed 15 leases/renewals/ expansions at the building totaling 97,546 RSF (80% of the building) at Lavaca Plaza within 20 months of being hired to lease the building. ECR was able to bring the building’s occupancy to 100% in March of 2014 and to solve for future lease expirations nearly 9 months in advance to stabilize occupancy at 100% for the longer term. During this same period, ECR managed to increase the lease rates by approximately 26%.
