HOUSTON — BP is moving its U.S. onshore oil and gas headquarters from Houston to Denver. Several BP divisions, including BP America, currently lease office space in Houston’s Energy Corridor, but the company has decided to relocate its Lower 48 onshore headquarters to a new Denver development.
BP will take 86,000 square feet in a new building being developed by Trammell Crow, in partnership with Clarion Partners. The company plans to initially relocate about 200 employees to Denver to occupy that space. The new 210,000-square-foot project, called Riverview at 1700 Platte, is being developed on the banks of the South Platte River near Denver’s redeveloped Union Station and was scheduled for completion at the end of 2017.
The move follows reports that BP was considering relocating roles from Houston into the Trammell Crow building as part of broader workforce and real estate adjustments. In Houston, BP maintains more than 2 million square feet of office space in the Energy Corridor, including the 390,000-square-foot Helios Plaza, which is currently being marketed in a sale-leaseback offering.
BP has announced significant layoffs and is expected to seek subtenants for roughly 1 million square feet of its Energy Corridor portfolio. That trend has contributed to a large increase in available sublease space in the submarket: a recent JLL report ranked the Energy Corridor as the top U.S. submarket for sublease supply.
This relocation underscores both the company’s restructuring of its U.S. onshore operations and the shifting dynamics of the Houston office market as energy firms reassess space requirements.
Dec. 14, 2016 Realty News Report Copyright 2016