The building we've come to know in recent years as "DXC Tower" has been sold.
Two Monroe businessmen and real estate investors, the brothers Eddie and Joseph Hakim, have purchased one of New Orleans' most visible office buildings: the green granite high-rise at 1615 Poydras St. currently named for its anchor tenant, DXC.
The Hakims bought the 23-story building from its longtime owner, businessman and philanthropist Frank Stewart, late Friday. The price was not disclosed.
It's the second Poydras Street high-rise for the Hakims. In 2013, they bought the 20-story Orleans Tower, formerly the Amoco Building, for $16 million and breathed new life into the aging tower, located across from City Hall. They renovated it and raised its occupancy from about 45% to more than 80% today.
The article does its best to suggest that somehow this sale indicates the market for New Orleans downtown office real estate is bucking trends. It says the sale is a "bright spot" in a local office market where occupancy rates are still below pre-COVID levels but "better than in many larger cities."
Anyway it's all nonsense. Read further and we see the real reason this building is being sold now is because Frank Stewart is dumping properties, possibly at a financial loss.
Now 89, Stewart has been trying to downsize his real estate portfolio in recent months and has spent much of 2023 quietly marketing 1615 Poydras for sale. Those efforts got a boost in late September, when Stone’s firm listed the building publicly.
No asking price was specified, but an online flier said the building was less than 52% occupied and being marketed “in cooperation with the lender ... at debt amount.” In real estate terms, that meant Stewart and his partners in Stewart Capital were working with their lender to sell it, even if at a loss, in hopes of avoiding a default on the mortgage.
It is unclear how much Stewart and his partners still owed on the building at the time of the sale.
Read even further than that and we get an update on the status of the building's current titular tenant.
Since 2017, the building has been named for DXC Technology Co., the Ashburn, Virginia-based firm that opened a regional office in the high-rise amid great fanfare and a promise of up to 2,000 jobs. The company hired only a fraction of its promised workforce and has since downsized its footprint in the building.
DXC continues to honor its lease on the building, which runs through 2031, but is currently trying to sublease four of its six floors, according to online real estate listings. Lahasky said the family has not had any conversations with the company but that meeting with DXC to discuss the lease will be a priority.
Of course, DXC didn't merely "open a regional office" there. The "great fanfare" referenced in that passage also included a hefty public subsidy from the state and the city. The deal looked incredibly shady to us, especially given the company's outsourcing and downsizing strategy at the time. We did say so.
Anyway, nobody remembers any of that. On to the next boondoggle, I'm sure.
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