By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer

Ashley Overlook, the new 105,800-square-foot North Charleston office building adjacent to Interstate 526 and the Ashley River, is the kind of spacious, class “A” facility needed to attract national corporate headquarters to the Lowcounty, local economic developers point out.

Now all the $18 million building needs are tenants.

“We’ve got about 12 proposals out to clients and are working on three leases,” said Jeff Mixson, associate vice president of Atlanta-based Holder Properties, developer and manager of the building.

The building is a Lowcountry rarity: an office facility offering space for companies of 100 or more employees, noted Peter Fennelly, vice president of marketing for the Charleston office of Colliers Keenan, the commercial real estate firm leasing Ashley Overlook’s space.

Each of the building’s four floors is about 26,450 square feet and can comfortably accommodate about 100 people. It is the kind of space that is attractive to companies seeking a large corporate headquarters, said Mixson, whose company has developed more than 8 million square feet of office space throughout the nation.

Ashley Overlook, which received its certificate of occupancy June 29, leases for $18 per square foot. The building’s 4.5-acre site contains 345 parking spaces.

The top two floors would be for large tenants—those seeking an entire floor or one tenant seeking both floors—and the bottom two floors would be divided among smaller tenants, Mixson explained.

Ashley Overlook offers eight floor plans, Mixson said, adding that the building’s open space can be fitted with walls to suit the needs of the tenant.

Corporate space boost

The Lowcountry’s class “A” office space inventory reached nearly 3.6 million square feet by the end of 2005, with a vacancy rate of about 9.5%, according to Colliers Keenan’s latest available market report for the Charleston area.

The addition of Ashley Overlook not only increases office space inventory but also provides corporations considering the Lowcountry for relocation with an existing facility for their new headquarters, Fennelly said.

More projects are on the way. At the Carriage Hill Executive Center in North Charleston, where Verizon Wireless occupies a 150,000-square-foot call center, another 150,000-square-foot building is under construction and should be completed by the first quarter of 2008, according to Bob Caldwell, president of Caldwell Commercial Real Estate Services.

“We’re absolutely marketing to national companies,” Caldwell said, adding that companies requiring an entire floor or more are among the prospects. “We’re still hoping Verizon takes a floor.”

So far, four potential tenants have shown interest in the facility, Caldwell noted.

The 130,000-square-foot Carolina First Center, the area’s other office building exceeding 100,000 square feet, has 19,000 square feet available for lease at $29 per square foot, according to Mark Marenakos, a broker with Rivers Enterprises, which is marketing the class “A” facility at the corner of East Bay and Calhoun streets in downtown Charleston.

However, additional office space could be built on three acres adjacent to the Carolina First Center, Marenakos said.

Dennis Quick covers commercial real estate for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.

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