Occidental Petroleum Signs Major Greenway Plaza Lease, Ending Long HQ Search
The Hub food hall in Three Greenway Plaza.
HOUSTON – Occidental Petroleum has signed a lease for 91,986 square feet at Three Greenway Plaza, confirming its decision to maintain headquarters operations within the Greenway Plaza campus after months of industry speculation.
This latest lease brings Occidental’s U.S. headquarters footprint at Greenway Plaza to more than 972,000 square feet. Greenway Plaza is a 52-acre office campus located inside Houston’s Inner Loop between downtown and Uptown. Developed by Century Development in the 1970s and 1980s, the campus is currently managed by Parkway Property Investments.
“We’re thrilled to retain OXY as a large, longtime tenant at Greenway Plaza,” said Eric Siegrist, Parkway’s Managing Director of Leasing. “The 11-building campus appeals to companies that prioritize a collaborative, evolving business environment that supports recruitment and employee satisfaction.”
Occidental was represented in the transaction by Brandon Clarke, Charles Gordon, Steve Hesse and Ryan Roth of CBRE, Inc. Rima Soroka, Director of Leasing, led Parkway’s leasing efforts.
A few years ago, Occidental placed roughly 814,000 square feet of its Greenway space on the sublease market. Since then, the company acquired the former 63-acre ConocoPhillips campus in the Energy Corridor, altering its real estate needs.
Occidental’s acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum for $55 billion further changed its space requirements, creating a surplus of office capacity. Anadarko itself owned two large office towers in The Woodlands prior to the deal.
The final shift involved Anadarko’s Woodlands towers. In late 2019, Howard Hughes Corp., the developer behind The Woodlands, purchased the Anadarko Tower in The Woodlands and the former ConocoPhillips campus in a deal valued at $565 million.
Occidental retained the 31-story, 807,586-square-foot building formerly known as the Anadarko Allison Tower at 1201 Lake Robbins Drive and has leased the entire building for an additional 13 years.
The other Anadarko property, a 30-story, 595,854-square-foot tower at 9950 Woodloch Forest Drive previously called the Anadarko Hackett Tower, will be vacated by Occidental. Howard Hughes Corp., headquartered in Dallas, plans to relocate its headquarters into that building.
These moves paved the way for Occidental to consolidate and maintain a significant presence at Greenway Plaza, situated near the Southwest Freeway and Buffalo Speedway just north of the West University Place neighborhood. Greenway Plaza was assembled by Kenneth Schnitzer, who acquired numerous post-war homes to create one of the most notable land assemblages in Texas history.
Last year, Greenway Plaza reported 265,000 square feet of new and expansion lease transactions across a variety of industries, including oil and gas, financial services, real estate, legal firms, and technology and innovation companies.
“Parkway continues to invest energy and capital in Greenway Plaza with the goal of enhancing the lifestyle of its occupants and improving tenant productivity,” said Allen de Olazarra, President and Chief Operating Officer of Parkway.
Tenants and visitors at Greenway Plaza benefit from a range of on-site amenities, such as a new 150,000-square-foot Lifetime “Diamond Club” facility, a conferencing center, an on-site child care provider, activated common areas with curated programming, a Zagster bike-sharing program, rotating food truck events, and a variety of food and beverage concepts including Fusion Eats, Feges BBQ, burger-chan, The Rice Box, Tony’s and the Next Seed Space incubator.
Parkway currently operates and/or provides accounting services for approximately 21.7 million square feet of well-located, high-quality office properties across California, Texas, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia.
