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Chevron Tower For Downtown At 1600 Louisiana St.


tangledwoods

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Here's the quote

I have some new information on the Chevron deal. I have a source who's family is part of the limited finance partnership for the 58-story Energy Tower project in Midland. They are exceedingly wealthy and pretty clandestine on the details but here's what I have. His dad is a very well known businessman, philanthropist and investor. Take it for what it's worth:

Chevron's downtown tower is in jeopardy and might be scrapped all together.

Chevron has recently shopped Tower 1 and 2 (former Enron) to Texas Pacific. By recently, he means very recently (wasn't specific).

Exxon, according to my source, has set the example and both Shell and Chevron have taken notice. According to 'him', Exxon has shown that it is cheaper to build in the burbs, with the ability to spread out and own adjacent parcels of land for later expansion than it is to build in the CBD. His words, not mine. This makes sense that Chevron would be looking for cheaper capital investment projects since they're Australian project is running way over budget.

Btw, he also said the HQ of Exxon will relocate to the new campus in the next few years. He said this campus was built and designed strictly for that purpose. He also mentioned that a new high-rise of some sort will be erected near the campus as an "architectural marvel" when the HQ is relocated.

Chevron appears to be far more interested in the Camp Strake parcel than what we are being lead on to believe. He couldn't give me much information due to the sensitivity of the discussions taking place. When asked on a scale of 1 to 10 how serious they are of abandoning both downtown buildings and scrapping the third, my source said "8."

He had no details on a Shell relocation to Montgomery County. The info. might seem vague but it was like pulling teeth to get the aforementioned out of him. If you have any specific questions, perhaps you can send them over and I can ask him but there's no guarantee I can get you an answer.

This is about as close to the horses mouth as you can get. Will try and dig for more info. later on. I just don't really know what probing questions to ask.

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Back to the topic - it seems as shell will also be building a campus. They are renaming 2 Shell Plaza. That pretty much is proof they are vacating. Does Chevron have the balls to do their own thing and build their downtown campus?

I certainly hope so. This trend sucks so much.

Edited by Avossos
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No - separate businesses.  Two Shell will be vacated and Pennzoil Place has been vacated.  One Shell Plaza was recently renovated and nearly all CBD staff have been consolidated there.

 

Shell just completed two 12-story budings in the Energy Corridor. Would they be relocating employees there?

 

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you have better sources on this board than nancy.

 ...only in very select areas of the real estate market. Since it is Nancy's actual job to report real estate news, I'm confident she has many more sources than I'll ever have. That is why I said what I said about Nancy.....I haven't heard anything on Chevron. And in my opinion, sources such as the Houston Chron are a lot more reputable than anyone on a forum, even myself. True, there are many people on this forum that have the inside scoop before news outlets ever cover it, it is still good to get confirmation from Biz Journals, Houston Chron, etc.

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That's often true, but it's hard to tell the good sources from the bad ones. I tend to ignore the ones of the variety "I know a guy close to the business who wouldn't lie and is never wrong".

Exactly.

 

Maybe I should just go with the ones who are consistently right.  :P

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...only in very select areas of the real estate market. Since it is Nancy's actual job to report real estate news, I'm confident she has many more sources than I'll ever have. That is why I said what I said about Nancy.....I haven't heard anything on Chevron. And in my opinion, sources such as the Houston Chron are a lot more reputable than anyone on a forum, even myself. True, there are many people on this forum that have the inside scoop before news outlets ever cover it, it is still good to get confirmation from Biz Journals, Houston Chron, etc.

I think he was referring to himself, and he is right. He doesnt disclose who he works for or what he does but hes always had the early scoop and hes never been wrong.
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I think he was referring to himself, and he is right. He doesnt disclose who he works for or what he does but hes always had the early scoop and hes never been wrong.

Yea, I misread what he wrote. We do have some great insiders here that get the scoop before the regular news outlets, but it's usually those same new outlets such as Biz Journals and Houston Chron that we share here on this forum and in other places. When we post those articles, we can usually agree that gives confirmation from a reputable, usually fact-checked source. That's why I've actually contacted Nancy hoping for any word on this and the Shell campus that I've been told about myself.

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I cannot disclose the relationship but I personally spoke to someone who is ACTIVELY working on the tower project from inside Chevron. That conversation took place this year. They echoed what has been said on here wich is cash will be set aside/earmarked at the end of the year.

They stated that unless something drastic happens once funding becomes available the project will move forward.

Edited by urbanize713
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I have some new information on the Chevron deal. I have a source who's family is part of the limited finance partnership for the 58-story Energy Tower project in Midland. They are exceedingly wealthy and pretty clandestine on the details but here's what I have. His dad is a very well known businessman, philanthropist and investor. Take it for what it's worth:

 

Chevron's downtown tower is in jeopardy and might be scrapped all together.

 

Chevron has recently shopped Tower 1 and 2 (former Enron) to Texas Pacific. By recently, he means very recently (wasn't specific).

 

Exxon, according to my source, has set the example and both Shell and Chevron have taken notice. According to 'him', Exxon has shown that it is cheaper to build in the burbs, with the ability to spread out and own adjacent parcels of land for later expansion than it is to build in the CBD. His words, not mine. This makes sense that Chevron would be looking for cheaper capital investment projects since they're Australian project is running way over budget.

 

Btw, he also said the HQ of Exxon will relocate to the new campus in the next few years. He said this campus was built and designed strictly for that purpose. He also mentioned that a new high-rise of some sort will be erected near the campus as an "architectural marvel" when the HQ is relocated.

 

Chevron appears to be far more interested in the Camp Strake parcel than what we are being lead on to believe. He couldn't give me much information due to the sensitivity of the discussions taking place. When asked on a scale of 1 to 10 how serious they are of abandoning both downtown buildings and scrapping the third, my source said "8." 

 

He had no details on a Shell relocation to Montgomery County. The info. might seem vague but it was like pulling teeth to get the aforementioned out of him. If you have any specific questions, perhaps you can send them over and I can ask him but there's no guarantee I can get you an answer.

 

This is about as close to the horses mouth as you can get. Will try and dig for more info. later on. I just don't really know what probing questions to ask.

 

Hadn't read the Chevron post in a couple weeks so I missed this. This is truly a gem. While I find the entire posting hilarious I specifically want to address wxman's reference to ExxonMobil building an "architectural marvel" whenever HQ relocates to the campus. I've posted on the ExxonMobil post regarding this topic. I am an employee of ExxonMobil, and it has been communicated to us that there are currently no plans to relocate HQ. Having said that, plans can always change as we know. However, our current CEO has no desire to relocate. The commute via private jet is a short one to the campus from Irving. Also, HQ's staff is relatively small. There would be no need to build a tower when and if the decision is made to relocate HQ. The new campus is being built with enough additional space to accommodate the number of employees that would be relocating, again, WHEN and IF. Infact the new campus is being built with the forthought that we will be expanding, which means hiring new employees. The campus was designed with this in mind.

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Hadn't read the Chevron post in a couple weeks so I missed this. This is truly a gem. While I find the entire posting hilarious I specifically want to address wxman's reference to ExxonMobil building an "architectural marvel" whenever HQ relocates to the campus. I've posted on the ExxonMobil post regarding this topic. I am an employee of ExxonMobil, and it has been communicated to us that there are currently no plans to relocate HQ. Having said that, plans can always change as we know. However, our current CEO has no desire to relocate. The commute via private jet is a short one to the campus from Irving. Also, HQ's staff is relatively small. There would be no need to build a tower when and if the decision is made to relocate HQ. The new campus is being built with enough additional space to accommodate the number of employees that would be relocating, again, WHEN and IF. Infact the new campus is being built with the forthought that we will be expanding, which means hiring new employees. The campus was designed with this in mind.

 

I spoke to another XOM employee who said he does not think HQ would be moving... I dont see why it makes sense to have things so spread out, but whatever.

 

Shell / Chevron will be downtown for awhile. Even if Shell builds elsewhere, that process will take years. Chevron will probably build downtown, but who says they wont want a campus peice as well. I think the tower happens, but i may be too optimistic.

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New information on this tower that I've heard in the last couple days:

  • The final decision on whether to fund this project will be in Q3 of 2015.
  • The construction will run through 2019. I'm not sure if this includes work after the building is already opened, or if the date that it will be opened is in 2019. I suspect that it includes the finishing touches.
  • 850 feet now, but still 50 floors. I don't know which one is an error. Or maybe they're expecting future Chevron employees to be taller than current employees.
  • They are hiring Chevron employees for this project starting now.

Except for the last bullet, I can't confirm that any of these will actually come to pass, but this is the latest info.

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Hadn't read the Chevron post in a couple weeks so I missed this. This is truly a gem. While I find the entire posting hilarious I specifically want to address wxman's reference to ExxonMobil building an "architectural marvel" whenever HQ relocates to the campus. I've posted on the ExxonMobil post regarding this topic. I am an employee of ExxonMobil, and it has been communicated to us that there are currently no plans to relocate HQ. Having said that, plans can always change as we know. However, our current CEO has no desire to relocate. The commute via private jet is a short one to the campus from Irving. Also, HQ's staff is relatively small. There would be no need to build a tower when and if the decision is made to relocate HQ. The new campus is being built with enough additional space to accommodate the number of employees that would be relocating, again, WHEN and IF. Infact the new campus is being built with the forthought that we will be expanding, which means hiring new employees. The campus was designed with this in mind.

Nice info. Thanks. Any clue on why they are putting a bunch of people in The Woodlands instead of on tge new campus?

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Very interesting article in WSJ this morning about the financial situation with Chevron, Exxon, and Shell, but it's behind a paywall unfortunately:

 

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303277704579348332283819314?mod=WSJ_hp_EditorsPicks&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303277704579348332283819314.html%3Fmod%3DWSJ_hp_EditorsPicks

 

Had a graph showing expenditures vs. production at each of the three since 2009, and Chevron looked the worst: capital expenditures have soared 89% with production down 3% in that time. The Australia project in particular has gone up over 40% since it began, and remains a very tricky endeavor.  They're under pressure to show investors that their balance sheet looks good.

 

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Very interesting article in WSJ this morning about the financial situation with Chevron, Exxon, and Shell, but it's behind a paywall unfortunately:

 

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303277704579348332283819314?mod=WSJ_hp_EditorsPicks&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303277704579348332283819314.html%3Fmod%3DWSJ_hp_EditorsPicks

 

Had a graph showing expenditures vs. production at each of the three since 2009, and Chevron looked the worst: capital expenditures have soared 89% with production down 3% in that time. The Australia project in particular has gone up over 40% since it began, and remains a very tricky endeavor.  They're under pressure to show investors that their balance sheet looks good.

 

The LNG liquefaction boom in Australlia is probably over after this round of plants. It's so expenive to do business over there that they probably won't get a lot more investment.

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Nice info. Thanks. Any clue on why they are putting a bunch of people in The Woodlands instead of on tge new campus?

 

ExxonMobil made a strategic decision not to place all there eggs in one basket, so to speak. If I remember the briefing made available to all XOM employees via the company intranet correctly, it had something to do with the company's ability to continue functioning as such from a central location, given a massive debilitating event at one location or another. I'll search the archives to find that briefing so I can correctly communicate the proper intention, without posting any direct quotes from the intranet (company rules).

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ExxonMobil made a strategic decision not to place all there eggs in one basket, so to speak. If I remember the briefing made available to all XOM employees via the company intranet correctly, it had something to do with the company's ability to continue functioning as such from a central location, given a massive debilitating event at one location or another. I'll search the archives to find that briefing so I can correctly communicate the proper intention, without posting any direct quotes from the intranet (company rules).

 

I've always heard it was for more administrative and back office functions.

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