T
rammell Crow Company is set to sell the iconic Sail Tower in downtown Austin for $521.8 million, with Atlanta-based Cousins Properties taking over the 800,000-square-foot property at 601 West 2nd Street. The transaction, advised by Eastdil Secured, is expected to close this month. Google had pre-leased the entire building in 2021 but never moved in and has since put 90,000 square feet up for sublease, with its lease running until 2038.

    The sale would be the priciest office transaction in Austin this year, surpassing Brandywine's $107.6 million sale of One and Two Barton Skyway to the City of Austin last month. The Austin office market is currently experiencing a record-high vacancy rate of 24.3 percent, with developers delivering 2.1 million square feet of space this summer.

    Cousins Properties already has a significant presence in downtown Austin, owning eight properties totaling 1.7 million square feet. The firm is also investing $60.5 million to build out space for Amazon at Domain 9 and has TikTok as a tenant at 300 Colorado. Despite the high vacancy rate, there have been notable leases, including PayPal's 90,000-square-foot expansion and Wise PLC's 60,700-square-foot lease in Stonelake Capital Partners' Domain Tower 2.