[Boris]

http://www.globest.com/news/houston/


"JV Unveils 630,000-SF Energy Center Plan

HOUSTON-Looking to invest $750 million to $1 billion into a spec class A office development program, Trammell Crow Co. and Principal Real Estate Investors are rolling out their first local project: two buildings, totaling 630,000 sf on 9.4 acres. The Energy Center will be the submarket's first class A office development since 2000.
Based on today's construction costs for upper-end class A space, the 330,000-sf first phase most likely will cost $60 million to $70 million to get out of the ground. A September groundbreaking is planned for the 13-story building along Eldridge Parkway between Dairy Ashford Road and Katy Freeway. It's estimated the spec project will take a year to 14 months to deliver. ...."

[Trophy Property]

Boris, on Friday, June 9th, 2006 @ 2:03pm, said:

http://www.globest.com/news/houston/
"JV Unveils 630,000-SF Energy Center Plan

HOUSTON-Looking to invest $750 million to $1 billion into a spec class A office development program, Trammell Crow Co. and Principal Real Estate Investors are rolling out their first local project: two buildings, totaling 630,000 sf on 9.4 acres. The Energy Center will be the submarket's first class A office development since 2000.
Based on today's construction costs for upper-end class A space, the 330,000-sf first phase most likely will cost $60 million to $70 million to get out of the ground. A September groundbreaking is planned for the 13-story building along Eldridge Parkway between Dairy Ashford Road and Katy Freeway. It's estimated the spec project will take a year to 14 months to deliver. ...."

That just goes to prove the point that certain segments of the Houston Office market are stronger than others. Occupancy is extremly strong in the West Houston Submarket. The Energy frims are in growth mode and are continuing their expansion to the West.

Now if we could get occupancy Downtown, Greenway, and Galleria to those lovels there would be some new spec towers built in those areas.

[Boris]

This is the third project mentioned in the BP article.

[nmm]

Whats "Class A" office space, exactly? And Class A as opposed to what, Class B?

Anyway, i stand by my assertion in that Houston isnt your prototypical city. Its really one big ass suburban community.

This post has been edited by nmm: Thursday, September 14, 2006 at 10:07 PM

[TheNiche]

nmm, on Thursday, September 14th, 2006 @ 10:06pm, said:

Whats "Class A" office space, exactly? And Class A as opposed to what, Class B?

Class A office space incorporates some stong combination of prestige, location, amenities, and high-quality buildout. It also costs the most.

There are also Classes B, C, and D. The further from A that an office building is, the lower the quality. An appraisal dicitionary could probably provide you with a more precise way of categorizing the differences in building quality.

Apartments are rated using a similar system.

[Montrose1100]

TheNiche, on Friday, September 15th, 2006 @ 12:12pm, said:

Class A office space incorporates some stong combination of prestige, location, amenities, and high-quality buildout. It also costs the most.

There are also Classes B, C, and D. The further from A that an office building is, the lower the quality. An appraisal dicitionary could probably provide you with a more precise way of categorizing the differences in building quality.

Apartments are rated using a similar system.

I didn't know they went all the way to D, thanks for the info Niche.

[TheNiche]

Montrose1100, on Saturday, September 16th, 2006 @ 12:41am, said:

I didn't know they went all the way to D, thanks for the info Niche.

You're very welcome. When it gets as bad as a D complex, you're talking about complexes that are generally fewer than 50 units, old, decrepit, leaky, moldy, bug-infested, crime-ridden, and on top of all that, poorly located. Not exactly investment-grade...

[Montrose1100]

TheNiche, on Saturday, September 16th, 2006 @ 12:41pm, said:

You're very welcome. When it gets as bad as a D complex, you're talking about complexes that are generally fewer than 50 units, old, decrepit, leaky, moldy, bug-infested, crime-ridden, and on top of all that, poorly located. Not exactly investment-grade...

The kind of places that "Mr. I.D." & "24 Hour Chiropractors" would be located at?

[TheNiche]

Montrose1100, on Saturday, September 16th, 2006 @ 2:04pm, said:

The kind of places that "Mr. I.D." & "24 Hour Chiropractors" would be located at?

Although for some reason I was talking about apartment complexes in my last post as opposed to office buildings, yeah, you'd see the difference in quality in the types of tenants that such a building attracts. Despite very low rental rates, the Class D office buildings usually have a glut of vacancy. The larger ones are at the most risk of becoming abandoned rat-holes. *coughCentralSquarecough*

[Boris]

[sttombiz]

the fence went up the other day

[VelvetJ]

Though I am glad to see the Energy Belt Skyline grow even more, the conservative designs of these buildings leave much to be desired. Buildings don't always have to be extravagant spectacles to be exciting to look at.

[sttombiz]

you should go down enclave pkwy. the new sysco tower looks amazing

[Talbot]

Yeah, the sysco building looks really good.

[Trae]

Enclave is a real wooded parkway and looks nice with those buildings lining across it. I like this area of Houston.

[KinkaidAlum]

Good news for Trammel Crow which shows the strength of the Houston market. The entire Energy Center I was leased to Foster Wheeler. All 332,000 square feet will be used by the company to consolidate employees from around town and to expand the company. This building was built as a spec building.

It is obvious that there are companies around town in need of LARGE amounts of space which bodes well for the proposed towers downtown and elsewhere.



This will also most likely mean that Energy Center II should break ground sooner rather than later.

[T 2 THA C]

Its interesting to see how more and more buildings are popping up on the vacant land on I-10 as construction is wrapoping up on alot of the segments. It sure is better than an ugly shopping center.

[Trae]

I-10 is going to be lined with mid-rise buildings from Memorial City until Fry Road. The next tower of considerable size is the Memorial Hermann hospital at the Grand Parkway.

[marc]

Trae, on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 @ 2:59pm, said:

I-10 is going to be lined with mid-rise buildings from Memorial City until Fry Road. The next tower of considerable size is the Memorial Hermann hospital at the Grand Parkway.

Yes, i love it. I took a trip down I-10 from The Grand Parkway to the Galleria a couple of days ago. It is awesome to see them getting rid of the cheesy strip malls and such to erect the mid/highrise towers. This, of course, bodes well for that area in offering higher paying jobs, meaning, for the most part, higher income residents. (not to be a snob, but Houston has enough low income neighborhoods) If i am lucky enough to live until say, 2030, it will very interesting to see the highrises lining all freeways for about 30 miles going from DT. It reminds me of the novel, BRAZIL.

m.

[ENGcons]

The second tower of that Energy Center breaks ground later this month.

However, Those towers are nothing compared to the World Class Facilities tha BP has coming out of the ground. Their new Helios Plaza which will house BP traders. It is part one of their master plan and may be only 6 floors but there is no other building like it in the country.

[Trae]

Six stories? Go up to at least 10, then start talking.

This post has been edited by Trae: Thursday, August 9, 2007 at 4:48 PM

[ENGcons]

10 stories of simple cookie cutter mid rise is not impressive. The 6 story building BP is putting up is not only a LEED Platnium design building it is the largest and most sophisticated LEED project in the country, potentially the world.
Not to mention after the completion of this building the plans extend to a new office tower, retail centers, and hotel all on the Katy Freeway on BP property. 6 year timeline for the completion of this development.

[Trae]

Well, if it was ten stories and LEED Platinum, what is the difference?

[TheNiche]

Trae, on Friday, August 10th, 2007 @ 2:59pm, said:

Well, if it was ten stories and LEED Platinum, what is the difference?

Four.

[ChannelTwoNews]

ENGcons, on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 @ 4:41pm, said:

The second tower of that Energy Center breaks ground later this month.

However, Those towers are nothing compared to the World Class Facilities tha BP has coming out of the ground. Their new Helios Plaza which will house BP traders. It is part one of their master plan and may be only 6 floors but there is no other building like it in the country.

If I'm not mistaken they've already begun construction on the second tower. At least that's what it looked like when I drove by there earlier this afternoon.

[Boris]

Saw this blurb on the TAMU website. Couldn't find an article in the Chron's website. Anyone have any other info on this project?

Quote

Developer to add buildings close to I-10 and Texas 6 - 9/4/2007
(Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown: Office)
(Houston) - Citing strong job growth and shrinking property vacancies, Opus West Corp. is planning a two-building development in the west Houston area that would add 460,000 square feet of office space to this energy-dominated market. The Phoenix-based developer bought almost 17 acres near the southwest corner of Interstate 10 and Texas 6 for the project, to be called Energy Crossing I & II. The price was not disclosed. With or without a tenant, the company expects to start construction in the fourth quarter, with the first phase scheduled for completion a year later. Overall office vacancy in this area, known as the Energy Corridor, is less than 7 percent, and the Class A market has even less space available, according to a mid-year report by Transwestern. Class A rents are up 9 percent on an annualized basis from the end of last year through June. "Tracts of land with this size and location are in short supply in the Energy Corridor," said Cushman & Wakefield's Marshall Davidson, who was part of a team that brokered the land transaction. (Reprinted from 09/01/07)
[Houston Chronicle]

This post has been edited by Boris: Tuesday, September 4, 2007 at 11:50 AM

[Boris]

Found the story:


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/busine...ff/5100807.html

[lockmat]

How's this comin along?

[TheNiche]

lockmat, on Monday, January 7th, 2008 @ 8:50pm, said:

How's this comin along?

As of last week, it was coming along nicely. It's already a sight to behold on the way into town. Ditto with the BP buildings.

[Ethanra]

The Energy corridor is impressive with its growth. The tree line along Eldridge and the couple of nice parks and the new shopping makes it a very comfortable neighborhood. Two cranes are up by Sysco HQ as well ( Enclave and ...?) I've notice at least a dozen different cranes over the past 12 months in this corridor with min. 5 up right now...

[lockmat]

Ethanra, on Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 @ 7:25am, said:

The Energy corridor is impressive with its growth. The tree line along Eldridge and the couple of nice parks and the new shopping makes it a very comfortable neighborhood. Two cranes are up by Sysco HQ as well ( Enclave and ...?) I've notice at least a dozen different cranes over the past 12 months in this corridor with min. 5 up right now...

CBRE just came out w/ their 4th quarter summary. It said the energy corridor has the most office construction going on right now.

[hldjhn987]

Energy Center II is now topped out at 13 stories.

[Trae]

Foster-Wheeler needs a less-tacky sign. Hopefully they are getting to it.