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Chevron Tower For Downtown At 1600 Louisiana St.


tangledwoods

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Just heard a rumor that they're exploring canceling the tower, and instead building a campus just North of The Woodlands, in a large tract of land that recently changed hands. Supposedly, Chevron is still evaluating both options.

That's what I said months ago!

 

Everyone and their uncle jumped all over me!!

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.  Never mind.  I'm sure plenty more will jump all over me if that does turn out true.

 

And I am in no way hoping that happens.  If it does we could see The Woodlands and Conroe jump dramatically in population over the next decade?

Edited by arche_757
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Hopefully so.  Personally there is very little interest in whatever happens in The Woodlands from me.  While I want nice suburbs and working towns/cities surrounding the core of Houston, I don't really want those suburban areas to pull major corporations FROM downtown.

 

I'm sure Chevron is large enough to build both a tower and suburban campus.

 

Now, back to the so far unsubstantiated (from what I can tell) rumors of this being a 60-65 floor building?  What news of that?

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Hopefully so. Personally there is very little interest in whatever happens in The Woodlands from me. While I want nice suburbs and working towns/cities surrounding the core of Houston, I don't really want those suburban areas to pull major corporations FROM downtown.

I'm sure Chevron is large enough to build both a tower and suburban campus.

Now, back to the so far unsubstantiated (from what I can tell) rumors of this being a 60-65 floor building? What news of that?

Instead if Chevron building both a tower and a suburban campus, why not build a 102 floor supertall? (:

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Chevron will build downtown. While nothing is set in stone, Chevron had its plans made long ago about where they'll expand to.

As for the rumors of this being 60 floors, it's possible but why wait until last minute to modify? We already know they have their eyes on more property in downtown where they will build another tower in the future.

BTW at this point Houston metro is big enough where companies like Chevron will have multiple sights for their work. The Woodlands rumor doesn't detract from their downtown plans I'd imagine.

Edited by Sellanious Caesar
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Do you guys realize how improbable it is that Chevron would cancel this tower and move all of their Houston employees to Conroe?

 

A few things to keep in mind:

  • This tower is the culmination of a long trend of consolidation into Downtown. Not only downtown, but all on contiguous blocks. Since the ChevronTexaco became Chevron, here are some of the moves:

All employees from 11111 Wilcrest were moved downtown.

All employees from a building in Sugar Land (forget the address) were moved downtown.

All employees from the Texaco building, a namesake of the company were moved to their current location.

All employees from the Chevron building, the namesake of the company were moved to their current location.

Some employees from Bellaire now work in downtown.

Some functions from their Covington, LA office were reassigned to employees in downtown Houston.

There have been at least two sets of moves involving San Ramon and Richmond, CA employees moving to downtown Houston.

 

Contrast that with Exxon, which was scattered all over the city to begin with, and needed a consolidated campus.

 

  • Chevron bought the YMCA property.
  • Chevron already got the tax rebates for building.
  • Chevron supervised the demolition of the YMCA. There are Chevron employees who told me he always felt like he was "in a fishbowl" because other Chevron employees could do "Safety Observations" at any time on the demolition work.
  • Chevron employees have talked about the plans for supervising the construction.
  • We all knew - all HAIFers, all Chevron employees, all architecture nuts outside Houston, etc. - that Chevron was going to build something at that site LONG before they announced it on July 3, 2013. For them to finallly announce it publicly and then cancel it a few months later, and 6 months from the start of construction ... that doesn't really make sense. Chevron and most large energy companies are very afraid of negative publicity, which a cancellation would cause. Internally even, I think this would piss off a lot of employees who recently bought a house somewhere other than Huntsville or Conroe, and for no other reason than because they could (and not out of necessity like Exxon).
  • Chevron is not exactly the best in the industry at project execution in terms of being on time in schedule. PMI information on projects backs this up. A year-long delay is not that rare. The Escravos GTL, IIRC, was delayed more than 5 years.
  • Most large public energy companies have requirements for capital projects to consider project alternatives which are sufficiently unique but also doable. The fact that some other location was considered at one point in time does not mean it is a serious alternative now, or that it ever really was.

While not impossible for Chevron to cancel, it seems very unlikely.

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Chevron will build downtown. While nothing is set in stone, Chevron had its plans made long ago about where they'll expand to.

As for the rumors of this being 60 floors, it's possible but why wait until last minute to modify? We already know they have their eyes on more property in downtown where they will build another tower in the future.

BTW at this point Houston metro is big enough where companies like Chevron will have multiple sights for their work. The Woodlands rumor doesn't detract from their downtown plans I'd imagine.

Agreed.. As for the rumors. My buddies father said he remembers it being "64 floors" (I'm assuming that's counting the base, but the original 50 story figure wasn't counting the podium, so idk) when asked about the height. My friends been slacking hard on getting back to me about checking the blue prints for the official height unfortunately. As for why they would increase it, I couldn't tell you.. But tangledwoods mentioned a month ago the height was still in flux. Edited by cloud713
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http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/28300-camp-strake-development/?p=426868

 

interestingly enough, there have been at least three people who do not know one another with the same or similar information. i do not intend to suggest that chevron would cancel the tower.  i do believe there are other chevron companies that could be behind the rumors.  at minimum, a chevron company most likely placed a bid on the camp strake property and as of yet, a large portion of the plans for the property have not yet been announced by the new owner.  essentially, everyone may be right, at least a little bit.

 

i'm positive the tower is a done deal.  also, based on my source (who sounds a lot like ferz source), an energy company could be in the works for the development at camp strake in conjunction with the new owners.

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If true, this would be news to the executives at chevron. You are also forgetting that that they purchased the parking garage next to the current tower on Louisiana in the last 24 months for future expansion. And of course that is to say nothing of the announcement to all employees about the tower. Moving north would go against absolutely every action chevron has taken in the past. That said, if some guy in Conroe said they are moving there, it is probably happening. . . .

I.

Edited by htownproud
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If true, this would be news to the executives at chevron. You are also forgetting that that they purchased the parking garage next to the current tower on Louisiana in the last 24 months for future expansion. And of course that is to say nothing of the announcement to all employees about the tower. Moving north would go against absolutely every action chevron has taken in the past. That said, if some guy in Conroe said they are moving there, it is probably happening. . . .

I.

 

actually, i stated that the tower is a done deal and that the rumors about the property to north, if true, are regarding a chevron company separate from the tower.  in addition, the rumors i heard were that more than one well known energy companies bid on the camp strake property. 

 

i will state it again to help keep the thread on the subject of the tower: the tower is a done deal.  if anyone wants to discuss the camp strake property, there is a thread on that separate subject.

 

i do feel a little giddy at the thought of chevron's tower ultimately being taller than 50 stories.  is there evidence this could be the case?

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i do feel a little giddy at the thought of chevron's tower ultimately being taller than 50 stories.  is there evidence this could be the case?

i should find out for sure tomorrow.. i didnt mean to get anyones hopes up of this possibly being a supertall, but if its the height my buddies father remembers it being (~64 stories) then i could see it being ~950'.

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i should find out for sure tomorrow.. i didnt mean to get anyones hopes up of this possibly being a supertall, but if its the height my buddies father remembers it being (~64 stories) then i could see it being ~950'.

 

sorry if I missed it, but why is your buddy's father credible?

 

is this just fanboy pumping or is this serious business

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sorry if I missed it, but why is your buddy's father credible?

 

is this just fanboy pumping or is this serious business

because he works for a company that won one of the contract/bids for the tower, so he has blueprints.. im not sure what you mean by fanboy pumping but i have no reason to lie, nor does my buddy. he didnt even realize i was a skyscraper dork but we were talking about his work and another large project came up, so i started asking him about skyscrapers and sure enough the Chevron tower is one of the projects hes working on. he did say however that there was a slight possibility that the tower was only 58 stories, but is almost positive its 64. we should find out tomorrow.

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If true, this would be news to the executives at chevron. You are also forgetting that that they purchased the parking garage next to the current tower on Louisiana in the last 24 months for future expansion. And of course that is to say nothing of the announcement to all employees about the tower. Moving north would go against absolutely every action chevron has taken in the past. That said, if some guy in Conroe said they are moving there, it is probably happening. . . .

I.

 

You're right. As tl;dr as my list was, I forgot that they also purchased this.

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http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/28300-camp-strake-development/?p=426868

 

interestingly enough, there have been at least three people who do not know one another with the same or similar information. i do not intend to suggest that chevron would cancel the tower.  i do believe there are other chevron companies that could be behind the rumors.  at minimum, a chevron company most likely placed a bid on the camp strake property and as of yet, a large portion of the plans for the property have not yet been announced by the new owner.  essentially, everyone may be right, at least a little bit.

 

i'm positive the tower is a done deal.  also, based on my source (who sounds a lot like ferz source), an energy company could be in the works for the development at camp strake in conjunction with the new owners.

 

Chevron also owns a six-story building on the southeast corner of Briarpark and Westpark. It houses a significant contingent of Chevron Energy Technology Company (ETC) (internal consultants, researchers, some PhD types) and research activities of Chevron Technology Ventures, who are looking into alternative energy and other things which require laboratory space. This laboratory space will NEVER be moved downtown because of fire safety concerns, corporate espionage concerns, chemical inventories required, and high square footage requirements for their experiments (it's cheaper in the burbs). The Briarpark building also houses a training center including the now defunct Drilling Training Center which was a joint venture with BP. (I think we can all understand why they went their separate ways, especially on something pertaining to drilling.) 

 

Last I heard, Chevron employees visiting for training were parking at nearby businesses, which leads me to believe that they are already space-limited at the Briarpark building, but I have no way to confirm this is the reason for off-site parking. It would make sense since some California ETC people have relocated from here (https://maps.google.com/maps?q=37.911166,+-122.355341&hl=en&sll=30.770159,-100.101929&sspn=3.737711,4.916382&t=m&z=17) to the Briarpark building.

 

If space is a constraint for research and for training, it might make sense to swap Briarpark for Camp Strake, but not downtown for Camp Strake.

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If space is a constraint for research and for training, it might make sense to swap Briarpark for Camp Strake, but not downtown for Camp Strake.

 

This.

 

Settle down, people. 

 

Chevron has a need for space outside of downtown, so there is no reason at all to be surprised that they may be looking at Camp Strake and should not be seen as a sign that they are going to divest of the ~$1bn worth of downtown real estate that they already own.

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I think we can all agree -regardless of outcome- this is the most highly speculated/talked about tower in quite some time!

 

- I think Chevron will probably go ahead and built that tower.  That is a lot of effort to produce zero for that site.

- Also, they can talk about the tower being 60 floors instead of 50.  They can engineer the building to accommodate those additional 10 floors if they so desire and then decide not to build that large.  Not like that hasn't been done before.

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A few notes:

 

  • Chevron has delayed the start of this project for multiple reasons, one of them being to allow more time for the design.
  • The tower will get built, there have been 0 discussions regarding cancellation.
  • The height of the tower was increased shortly after the project was awarded to the GC. (they added two floors)
  • With the additional time for design there are discussions regarding the desired height for the tower, nothing is currently set in stone and anyone who throws out a height figure right now needs to understand that the height of the tower is FLEXIBLE with the start of construction pushed out.
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Chevron has several moving pieces occurring simultaneously.  

 

You are exactly right about Briar Park.  That facility will not be relocated downtown under any scenario.

 

Similarly, Chevron owns and occupies two office buildings on the old Texaco facility in Bellaire.  They are currently demolishing several old lab buildings on that site that will free up some land that could be repurposed later.  I don't anticipate them leaving this facility any time soon.

 

ChevronPhillips Chemical is headquartered in The Woodlands and will always remain separated from the parent company because its a JV with Phillips 66.  They are expanding rapidly and will need additional space (very apt to stay in The Woodlands area).

 

They have already closed the Sugar Land office (old Unocal building) and moved those employees downtown.

 

In addition to 1400 Smith and 1500 Louisiana, they also currently lease about 20 floors in the Cullen Center (Continental building) and 20 floors in Allen Center.  The employees in these leased offices will occupy much of the new tower.  Additionally, they are constantly transferring employees and business units from San Ramon to Houston.  

 

Also, they are continuing to hire at high rates to accommodate their expansion aspirations.  For example, they recently added several hundred new employees in Houston for their Kittimat project with Apache, almost overnight.  The rate of new hires will ultimately slow; but it shows no signs of stopping, yet.

 

Oil companies are currently facing an interesting dilemma.  Their queues of attractive projects and opportunities are huge and the need for the services they provide are growing globally.  It takes enormous capital investment to accommodate this growth.  Yet Wall Street has been pressuring these companies to show more discipline in their capital budgeting.  While this makes sense from a short-term stock valuation perspective, it could lead to longer-term energy shortages.  How might this come into play here?  When capital is perceived to be tight, the capital associated with office buildings struggles to compete with projects that more directly meet the organization's objectives and provide the organization with better returns.  This will force companies to consider lower cost alternatives.

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<p><p>A few notes:

  • Chevron has delayed the start of this project for multiple reasons, one of them being to allow more time for the design.
  • The tower will get built, there have been 0 discussions regarding cancellation.
  • The height of the tower was increased shortly after the project was awarded to the GC. (they added two floors)
  • With the additional time for design there are discussions regarding the desired height for the tower, nothing is currently set in stone and anyone who throws out a height figure right now needs to understand that the height of the tower is FLEXIBLE with the start of construction pushed out.

Thanks for clearing things up tangledwoods.

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