Description of Business and Significant Accounting Policies	9 Months Ended
	Sep. 30, 2019
Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]
Description of Business and Significant Accounting Policies	Description of Business and Significant Accounting Policies Description of Business Highwoods Properties, Inc. (the “Company”) is a fully integrated real estate investment trust (“REIT”) that provides leasing, management, development, construction and other customer-related services for its properties and for third parties. The Company conducts its activities through Highwoods Realty Limited Partnership (the “Operating Partnership”). At September 30, 2019, we owned or had an interest in 31.2 million rentable square feet of in-service properties, 1.2 million rentable square feet of office properties under development and approximately 275 acres of development land. The Company is the sole general partner of the Operating Partnership. At September 30, 2019, the Company owned all of the Preferred Units and 103.3 million, or 97.4%, of the Common Units in the Operating Partnership. Limited partners owned the remaining 2.7 million Common Units. During the nine months ended September 30, 2019, the Company redeemed 13,000 Common Units for a like number of shares of Common Stock. Basis of Presentation Our Consolidated Financial Statements are prepared in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“GAAP”). The Company’s Consolidated Financial Statements include the Operating Partnership, wholly owned subsidiaries and those entities in which the Company has the controlling interest. The Operating Partnership's Consolidated Financial Statements include wholly owned subsidiaries and those entities in which the Operating Partnership has the controlling interest. We consolidate joint venture investments, such as interests in partnerships and limited liability companies, when we control the major operating and financial policies of the investment through majority ownership, in our capacity as a general partner or managing member or through some other contractual right. In addition, we consolidate those entities deemed to be variable interest entities in which we are determined to be the primary beneficiary. At September 30, 2019, we have involvement with, and are the primary beneficiary in, an entity that we concluded to be a variable interest entity (see Note 3). All intercompany transactions and accounts have been eliminated. The unaudited interim consolidated financial statements and accompanying unaudited consolidated financial information, in the opinion of management, contain all adjustments (including normal recurring accruals) necessary for a fair presentation of our financial position, results of operations and cash flows. We have condensed or omitted certain notes and other information from the interim Consolidated Financial Statements presented in this Quarterly Report as permitted by SEC rules and regulations. These Consolidated Financial Statements should be read in conjunction with our 2018 Annual Report on Form 10-K. Certain amounts within the Consolidated Statements of Income for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2018 were removed and/or combined to conform to the current year presentation. Use of Estimates The preparation of consolidated financial statements in accordance with GAAP requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the amounts reported in our Consolidated Financial Statements and accompanying notes. Actual results could differ from those estimates. Real Estate and Related Assets Real estate and related assets are recorded at cost and stated at cost less accumulated depreciation. Renovations, replacements and other expenditures that improve or extend the life of assets are capitalized and depreciated over their estimated useful lives. Expenditures for ordinary maintenance and repairs are charged to expense as incurred. Depreciation is computed using the straight-line method over the estimated useful life of 40 years for buildings and depreciable land infrastructure costs, 15 years for building improvements and five to seven years for furniture, fixtures and equipment. Tenant improvements are amortized using the straight-line method over initial fixed terms of the respective leases, which generally are from three to 10 years. Depreciation expense for real estate assets was $51.3 million and $48.1 million for the three months ended September 30, 2019 and 2018, respectively, and $159.7 million and $142.4 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2019 and 2018, respectively. Leases See Note 2 for policies and related disclosures with respect to our leases as both a lessee and lessor. Insurance We are primarily self-insured for health care claims for participating employees. We have stop-loss coverage to limit our exposure to significant claims on a per claim and annual aggregate basis. We determine our liabilities for claims, including incurred but not reported losses, based on all relevant information, including actuarial estimates of claim liabilities. At September 30, 2019, a reserve of $0.5 million was recorded to cover estimated reported and unreported claims. Other Events During the third quarter of 2019, we announced a series of planned investment activities. First, we have agreed to acquire Bank of America Tower at Legacy Union in Charlotte’s uptown CBD submarket for a total investment of $436 million. Bank of America Tower at Legacy Union is a trophy, LEED gold-registered office building encompassing 841,000 square feet with structured parking that delivers this year. The acquisition is scheduled to close in November 2019. We have posted earnest money deposits totaling $50 million that are non-refundable except in limited circumstances. Second, we have a two-phased plan to exit the Greensboro and Memphis markets. The first phase consists of selling a select portfolio of assets in Greensboro and Memphis by mid-2020 with a total sales price that approximates the $436 million total investment for Bank of America Tower at Legacy Union and closing the division offices. We can provide no assurances, however, that we will dispose of any of these assets on favorable terms, or at all, because the dispositions are subject to the negotiation and execution of definitive and binding purchase and sale agreements and would then be subject to the buyers’ completion of satisfactory due diligence and other customary closing conditions. The second phase is the planned sale of the remaining assets in both markets. There is no pre-determined timetable for the second phase. As a result of the announced plan to exit the Greensboro and Memphis markets and close our division offices, we recorded $0.7 million of severance costs in the third quarter of 2019 and expect to record an additional $1.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2019. During the first quarter of 2019, Laser Spine Institute, which leased a 176,000 square foot building with structured parking in Tampa’s Westshore submarket, suddenly ceased operations. As a result of this sudden closure, we incurred $5.6 million of credit losses on operating lease receivables and $2.3 million of write-offs of lease incentives (in rental and other revenues), $4.1 million of write-offs of notes receivable (in other income/(loss)) and $11.6 million of write-offs of tenant improvements and deferred leasing costs (in depreciation and amortization). Recently Issued Accounting Standards The Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) issued an accounting standards update (“ASU”) that eliminates the requirement to separately measure and report hedge ineffectiveness and generally requires the entire change in the fair value of a hedging instrument to be presented in the same income statement line as the hedged item when the hedged item affects earnings. We adopted the ASU as of January 1, 2019 with no material effect on our Consolidated Financial Statements. The FASB issued an ASU that changes certain disclosure requirements for fair value measurements. The ASU is required to be adopted in 2020 and applied prospectively. We do not expect such adoption to have a material effect on our Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements.