aggieguy

The Woodlands will vote on whether to become their own city in 2014.

I believe they own the Timberloch building (11 story tower) just south of the waterway, along with 14 total acres, including land west of Timberloch building parking garage. At least, they're the sole occupant of the Timberloch building. The way they're growing, though, I don't think just one more ~30 story tower will cut it.

They're splitting the company and relocating to "Houston". Not a lot of info on exactly what divestitures they'll make, what they'll cut, et cetera... But they're bailing on California. They haven't announced where the HQ will be other than "Houston" but just like Springwoods was there before Exxon announced the move, so too is Johnson Dev. before the announcement of whatever is going in the corporate allotted space at the north-east corner of their development.

Anyone corroborate that Oxy will be moving California HQ to north of The Woodlands / Johnson Development where Camp Strake used to be?

Well we were all wrong. Looks like it'll be Oxy (Occidental Petroleum).

I don't think the issue is the speed limit. On my commute, I would wager that 70-80% of drivers are distracted on their phones, either talking or texting. How about we mandate that while you're driving your 3000 pound weapon, you devote 95% of your mental capacity to driving? On freeways outside of the city (sparse traffic areas), I firmly feel comfortable going 85-90 on a straight away. That's because both hands are on the wheel, I'm not messing with my phone, and I'm watching out for bad drivers. In the city, you'd better believe I never go more than a couple miles faster per hour than the posted limits. The people advocating for slower speed limits are most likely the offenders who are eating breakfast, texting, chatting on their phones, et cetera. But my radical views are that far too many people are allowed to drive in the first place. There should be a much more stringent test to be able to gain a license that involves slalom, high speed cornering, and drifting. Make people proficient at driving and take away distractions and there goes the fatalities. I've had my license for over a decade and I've not had a single ticket (no, I don't have a radar detector) or accident, and predominantly my vehicles have been either sport bikes or sports cars.

Guilty as charged. Actually, there was a page break after the first comment on the page; I didn't realize I missed half a page of comments. I could have deleted my gratuitous comment. I also could have rinsed out my cereal bowl this morning before putting it in the sink like my wife told me to. I like to live life on the wild side.

I could see Southwest offering select flights out of Conroe. I don't think it'd ever be a major hub or even half as big as Hobby, but catering to north side corporations would be pretty advantageous. At the very least, allowing Exxon, Anadarko, and whatever other corporation that may move north to house their Gulfstreams and Leers at Conroe would be immense savings due to the sheer cost of the hangers at IAH. Well, maybe not Exxon since it actually would be further for them to go to Conroe.

IAH being so close is probably the main reason. From Anadarko it takes less than 20 minutes to get to IAH. But if a corporate campus goes in as far north as Camp Strake, it'd be closer to hop on the Hardy extension that's running to Conroe.

Conroe Airport expansion. Would allow 737's to use the airport. Not a bad option if you need a place to house your gulfstreams... http://app1.kuhf.org/articles/1381755046-How-Montgomery-County-Airport-Expansion-Could-Bring-More-Business-Travelers.html

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Construction-kicks-off-for-new-Phillips-66-campus-5004952.php#/0 But... They're already building in west Houston.

Also, with regards to The Woodlands being the next energy corridor, not exactly. It seems that most of the upstream companies are moving north whereas a lot of the midstream and oilfield services companies are moving out west. BP is in Katy, as is Conoco (vicinity, at least), but outside of those two, there aren't a lot of independent upstream players. In The Woodlands and surrounding areas you have Southwestern Energy, Exxon, Anadarko, Independence, Arena Energy, Knight Resources, Talisman, Baker Hughes, Epic Energy, Bridas Energy, Capstone Energy, and then companies like Tetra Tech, Newpark, Elliot O&G, Beacon Nat Gas, and some other services companies. That's not to mention the petrochem companies flocking here, like AmericasStyrenics, Nexeo, et al. I don't think we'll match the size of the energy corridor, but I definitely think upstream has taken root. Also, upstream typically pays far more than mid or downstream companies due to the spread of the margins.

Here's the history of The Woodlands campus according to general conversation (none of this is listed in a wiki or anything, but it's just what people say). We built the first tower and intended to occupy floors 17-30, and lease out floors 4-16. That never happened; we filled it up before we could even begin to think about leasing. Then, when we announced plans to build tower 2, the thought was that we'd move everyone from the Timberloch building (brown ugly, the old Mobil building across from the towers) into tower 2 and lease out Timberloch. I don't see that happening since we're filling up the new tower so quickly. We lease several floors in the Woodforest buildings just north of Lake Robbins (between the towers and the waterway/Flemings). I don't definitively know what's going to happen, but I do know we seem to be growing as a company and doing very well and once we're out of space, growth is a headache until we find NEW space. The second tower is only 20ish floors of office space, the rest is the parking garage so it's less than you'd think. We own the land west of the Timberloch parking garage on the south side of the waterway (Woodforest/Timberloch), so I'm guessing that's where the rumors of tower 3 come from. No one has said anything, but once we're full, they have to find/build space somewhere. They've invested a lot in this campus, and I could fathom that they'd build one or two more towers in the future, but that's just speculation. I'm all for growth, but my question is when are the house prices going to cap out per square feet? They can only go so high, right? I bought my home in October '12, and since then, it's appreciated 30%. I'm looking at buying again in a year or two in Cottage Grove. Those homes have appreciated 100k from '08 to '13. Oy!

First post. Had to jump in! As a "Woodlandite" who drinks the koolaid daily and who was born in The Woodlands, works at Anadarko, and never leaves the zip code, I'm glad I found this site. Here's my speculation, and it's just that... nothing more than speculation. I heard from 3 different sources that THEY heard (little game of telephone, right?) Shell was going to have office space in the Johnson Development at Camp Strake. That's what drove me to find this site. What if, and this is a huge if, but what if the new CEO is moving the company stateside due to tax reasons / restructuring and the global headquarters for Shell will be north of The Woodlands? I've heard that Chevron wants to pull everyone to Houston but is waiting until the current CEO, who has ties to the west coast, retires. Anytime there's a CEO shift, there's the chance of a big shakeup that could warrant a trans-Atlantic HQ relocation.