Photo Via Wikimedia Commons

One Shell Square, the tallest and biggest office building in New Orleans and Louisiana, was acquired by the Los Angeles-based Hertz Investment Group.

Hertz announced yesterday that they purchased the building as part of an approximately $416 million, 5 building deal with Equity Commonwealth.

The deal included office buildings in Birmingham, Ala., Columbia, S.C., and Greensboro, N.C.   In total, Hertz ia acquiring more than 3 million square feet of space.

Hertz now owns over a third of all Class A office space in New Orleans.  In addition to One Shell Square, they own 400 Poydras, the Poydras Center at 650 Poydras St., First Bank and Trust Tower at 909 Poydras St., and the Energy Centre at 1100 Poydras St.

One Shell Square is the largest building in Louisiana with 51-stories and more than 1.25 million square feet. It rises 697 feet in the Central Business District and was completed in 1972.  It was developed by Houston-based Hines Development and designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.  It was the first Southeastern skyscraper to rise higher than 656 feet, it was the tallest building in the Southeastern US at the time of its completion.  Hertz says its over 93% leased.

The seller, CommonWealth REIT, purchased One Shell Square in 2011 for $102 million.