FORT WORTH -- Alcon Laboratories, in what is likely the largest new office lease signed this year in Tarrant County, plans to begin moving about 400 employees into 87,000 square feet at Wilcox Plaza at Green Oaks in west Fort Worth in the spring.
The company needs the space immediately to accommodate employees moving to Fort Worth from Atlanta, as well as other growth, as it plans for additional facilities on its campus in south Fort Worth, said Bettina Maunz, vice president of corporate communications.Alcon has leased the space for three to five years, she said. Wilcox Plaza is a three-story, 187,000-square-foot building at Interstate 30 and Green Oaks Road, the site of the former Green Oaks Hotel, which was demolished in 2007.Alcon, a leading producer of ophthalmic surgical products and pharmaceuticals, was acquired in April by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis. Novartis' Atlanta-based Ciba Vision, which makes contact lenses and lens-care products, and the Novartis Ophthalmic unit are being consolidated into Alcon's operations.This fall, the City Council approved establishing a reinvestment zone for Alcon's sprawling campus, just east of Interstate 35W south of Interstate 20. Officials granted an 80 percent tax abatement on the incremental real estate and business property taxes for 10 years.Alcon told the city it plans to increase its local workforce to about 4,000 and intends to spend millions of dollars to expand its facilities. It employs more than 3,200 locally.Alcon has not announced what those expansion plans will include. Alcon was founded in 1945 in Fort Worth.Alcon's lease is for 87,191 square feet of office space: 57,000 square feet on the second floor and the remaining on the third floor, said John Grace, a broker with Case Commercial who represented the landlord.The lease brings Wilcox Plaza to 96 percent leased. Lockheed Martin and the Art Institute of Fort Worth are its largest tenants. Three other tenants are in the three-story building, which was completed in 2009.With the Alcon lease, vacancy in the suburban office market for Class A space dropped to 8.1 percent from 13. 6 percent, said Todd Burnette, managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle brokerage office in Fort Worth. Burnette and Pat McDowell represented Alcon.Now tenants looking for office space totaling more than 35,000 square feet outside downtown have few options, Burnette said."There are not any large blocks of Class A space outside of downtown," he said.Sandra Baker, 817-390-7727Twitter: @SandraBakerFWSTHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
