Downtown may be going through a renaissance, but Houston is still characterised by massive residential and commercial campuses that line the motorways circling and criss-crossing the city. And with the facilities they offer, downtown has a battle on its hands to retain business and people. Samantha McClary takes a quick tour of the established and future mega new towns
The Woodlands
The Woodlands is the original new town in Houston. It was the brainchild of oil tycoon George Mitchell, who began buying land in the area – 27 miles north of downtown – in the 1970s. It was in the middle of nowhere, with very little residential and absolutely no commercial development. Mitchell, who died last year aged 97, wanted to create an area to tempt city slickers away from downtown to the suburbs where they could experience a better quality of life. And he did: some 100,000 people now work there.
Mitchell continued to build and own the 27,000-acre site until the mid-1990s, when he sold it to a joint venture between Crescent Real Estate and Morgan Stanley for $543m (£327m). The new owners have built on the commercial density at The Woodlands, vowing to create one job for every house built.
A major catalyst for this push to develop more office space at the campus was oil giant Anadarko opening an 800,000 sq ft skyscraper there in 2002. Earlier this year, it completed a second tower at the site, the 575,000 sq ft Hackett Tower. Designed by Gensler, the 32-storey block links with its first tower and allows for further linked phases to be built. The building, which also features a sky-level, tree-lined indoor basketball court, forms part of Anadarko’s long-term plans to consolidate more than 1,500 staff in one amenity-rich location.
The commitment of commercial occupiers such as Anadarko means that The Woodlands now has an office market that covers almost 10m sq ft and ranks in the top three in Houston.
ExxonMobil campus
Just a few miles away from The Woodlands is one of the most talked-about, but also most secretive, projects in Houston. ExxonMobil’s new campus in the Springwoods Village area sits 25 miles north of downtown Houston. Workers started moving to the 385-acre campus in March and more than 10,000 of them are set to be installed at the 20-building campus once it reaches practical completion in 2015. They are being consolidated into the 3m sq ft development from the oil giant’s upstream, downstream and chemicals companies based in offices downtown and in Fairfax, Virginia.
Trying to get close to the project – for anyone that is not directly involved in laying brick on brick – is almost impossible. ExxonMobil remains relatively tight-lipped on the project, despite its vastness being clearly visible. Shareholder reports reveal the ambitions of the Gensler-designed project.
The major energy firms across Houston are battling to attract and retain talent and are designing offices for staff to do this. Keen to make the campus an attractive place to work, ExxonMobil has made sure more than 80% of the site will remain in its natural wooded state or will be landscaped with transplanted trees. A three-acre common will form a centrepiece around which the 20 office buildings are being developed. The scheme will also include a 100,000 sq ft fitness centre, shops, restaurants and a child development centre with capacity for 300 children to learn in its 19 classrooms.
In his shareholder report, ExxonMobil Global Service president Brian Milton said: “From the start, the campus was designed and is being built for the people who are going to use it. The offices, common areas, meeting places and amenities will significantly improve opportunities for collegiality and collaboration.”
The project has already sparked further development outside the campus. Land for homes for the influx of new workers is being snapped up by housebuilders, and related energy companies are setting up their own headquarters in the region. Southwest Energy and Baker Hughes are both building 500,000 sq ft offices nearby and agents estimate that upwards of 2m sq ft of offices are under construction.
ExxonMobil is also expanding outside its own campus, taking a 480,000 sq ft satellite office at The Woodlands.
Generation Park
At 4,000 acres, Generation Park is one of the largest development projects in the US and has taken McCord Development a decade to assemble.
Generation Park will be split into five districts. The Corridor District, in which FMC will be based, and the neighbouring Lake District have been designed to attract major corporates’ headquarters. Spanning more than 1,000 acres, the Corridor District offers two miles of frontage to Beltway 8 (the secondary motorway loop around the city) and specialist amenities development, the S.PA. The 925-acre Lake District features a major recreational lake.
The heavily wooded 485-acre Research District next to the Lake District provides the ideal space for companies looking for privacy and discretion while an industrial element – split into two zones – spans 1,500 acres. Some 1.4m sq ft of space is already being developed speculatively.
The industrial zones include a rail-connected district and one of the largest foreign trade zones in Harris County. The FTZ, considered outside the US, allows corporates to pay no duty and save 65% on inventory tax.
Energy Corridor
The Energy Corridor is one of the fastest-growing commercial areas in Houston. Situated on the Katy Freeway, about 20 miles west of downtown, the area is home to 300 international and national companies, including Shell, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil. Some 23m sq ft of office space has been built, with more on the way.
That figure is set to almost double to 40m sq ft by 2030, bringing with it thousands of new jobs. Employee numbers in the corridor already top 90,000. In 16 years they will be close to 150,000. Established in the early 1980s, the Energy Corridor continued to boom even during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Growth has taken off over the past decade, with 60 new buildings totalling 12m sq ft and 4,000 new homes constructed. More than $2.5bn of new development is either planned or under construction, including the 1.1m sq ft Energy Center Three and Four for ConocoPhillips.
The 550,000 sq ft Energy Center Three is due to complete this month, with its sister building scheduled for completion in January 2016. The project is being developed by Trammell Crow on behalf of Principal Global Investors.
Samantha.McClary@estatesgazette.com
Houston special: see also
• 50 City slickers• 58 Ryan McCord interview
