Fort Worth-based accounting firm Whitley Penn is moving to the Frost Tower Fort Worth, adding another high-profile name to the equally high profile new downtown office building.
Anthracite Realty Partners LLC announced July 19 that the public accounting firm has leased 45,872 square feet encompassing two full floors in Frost Tower.
Seth Koschak and Tyler Maner with Stream Realty Partners represented the landlord, Anthracite Realty, in the transaction. Cannon Camp and Todd Burnette with JLL represented Whitley Penn.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Whitley Penn, another great Texas-based company, to their new home at Frost Tower Fort Worth,” said Laura Bird, president of Anthracite Realty. “It has been exciting to witness Whitley Penn’s success over the past decade. They are well in tune with what it will take to thrive in the workplace of the future.
“We are honored Whitley Penn has chosen to move their headquarters to FTFW and we look forward to supporting the firm’s fast-paced growth by offering a forward-thinking environment that attracts and retains top talent,” Bird said.
The move to Frost Tower Fort Worth symbolizes Whitley Penn’s continued desire to be a major presence within the Fort Worth market and emphasizes the importance the firm places on quality of life for its employees, said Larry Autrey, managing partner at Whitley Penn.
“We have outgrown our building here … so as we were looking at what to do in that regard our other choice was to build up a tower, over on Fifth Street, and we began to look with Jones Lang at the options, the option that seemed the best for a firm that – we don’t know how fast we’ll grow or when that growth will slow – is to get into a large building that would give us the ability to expand, and out of something that has limited us,” said Autrey.
“It was a great answer to build our building back in 2006. We moved in in 2007 and we really thought this would take us another 20 years, but the growth has kept us on our toes in terms of keeping people with offices or places to work.”
Autrey noted the new location will create a more collaborative space for the organization.
“Frost Tower will allow our team the opportunity to work in a great building with access to the restaurants and amenities of downtown, while providing the business community of Fort Worth the convenience of our audit, tax and consulting professionals working in close proximity,” he said.
Whitley Penn has about 200 employees in its Fort Worth headquarters and about 500 total around the state, where it has offices in Dallas, Austin and Houston.
Autrey said the company is growing fast, particularly in its Fort Worth office, so it was running out of space at its current location, a building at 1400 W. 7th St.
Whitley Penn was established in 1983 by three founding partners: Tarrant County Judge B. Glen Whitley, Jim Penn and Mark Topel.
Frost Tower Fort Worth is a Class AA building and the first high-rise constructed in the city in more than 20 years. The 25-story building was designed by Bennett Benner Partners and built by Balfour Beatty Construction. The building is also home to an event venue open for private events, meetings, and conferences, as well as Perch, one of downtown’s newest restaurants.
“It shows really well, it’s got a lot of glass, tall ceilings, it’s got a state-of-the-art conference center, which I think was very appealing to Larry, since the Fort Worth location is the headquarters, the ability to have big meetings in the building, in the conference center, was a huge plus,” said Todd Burnette, Market Lead, JLL Fort Worth. “It’s also walkable to Sundance Square, numerous restaurants, shopping, and then a lot of clients that office downtown, so I think the building will continue to perform really well and lease up.”
The addition of Whitley Penn, slated to occupy their new space in late 2018, brings Frost Tower Fort Worth to 70 percent leased.
“Frost Tower Fort Worth is truly an irreplaceable project that offers tenants an experience that cannot be duplicated in our market today. We are excited that Whitley Penn noticed this rare opportunity to be a part of such a unique asset. Expanding the tenant roster to include Whitley Penn only adds to the environment and atmosphere the ownership has always envisioned,” said Maner.
– FWBP Staff