Greenway Plaza Renovation: From Oil Spills to Smart Tech Upgrades
The 5 Greenway Plaza building had almost 800,000 SF of sublease space, more than any other building in Houston after OXY announced its outward relocation last summer.
HOUSTON – (Realty News Report) – Three new tenants are bolstering an emerging technology and innovation ecosystem at Greenway Plaza, the 52-acre urban campus near the Southwest Freeway and Buffalo Speedway. The campus is managed by Parkway Property Investments, LLC and comprises a prominent concentration of office and lab space in Houston’s Inner Loop.
These leasing wins follow a challenging period for Greenway Plaza, which had seen significant tenant departures. Last summer, Occidental Petroleum placed nearly 814,000 square feet of sublease space on the market, primarily at 5 Greenway Plaza (approximately 746,070 SF) and 3 Greenway Plaza (about 67,525 SF), creating the largest single-block availability in the city at that time.
Greenway Plaza’s recent positive absorption has been driven largely by technology-oriented companies finding the campus attractive for headquarters, regional offices and industrial IoT operations.
Houston-based ThoughtTrace, a company specializing in human-assisted artificial intelligence for contract analysis, has signed a 4,358-square-foot lease in Phoenix Tower for its new U.S. headquarters, with a planned move in during the first quarter of 2019. ThoughtTrace, which maintains regional sales offices in Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Oklahoma City and Pennsylvania, provides tools that help enterprises extract, review and validate critical information from contracts and legal documents. ThoughtTrace was represented by Allie Hubbard, Brandi McDonald and Christina Ott of Limestone Commercial; Parkway was represented by Rima Soroka and JP Hutcheson.
DMC, a Chicago-based engineering and software development firm that supports manufacturing, testing and product development clients worldwide, is relocating its Houston office from Upper Kirby to Greenway Plaza in the third quarter. DMC has committed to 6,403 square feet in 8 Greenway Plaza. The tenant was represented by William Padon of CBRE, while Parkway was represented by Rima Soroka and JP Hutcheson.
Detechtion Technologies, a global provider of industrial IoT and mobility solutions for the oil and gas sector, recently moved its headquarters into a 12,000-square-foot space at 8 Greenway Plaza. Parkway was represented by Amanda Nebel and Eric Siegrist; Detechtion Technologies was represented by Joshua Brown and Evan Roland of Newmark Knight Frank.
Beyond these three companies, recent leasing activity at Greenway Plaza’s technology cluster includes a renewal of nearly 8,000 square feet by a commercial operations enterprise software provider and roughly 30,000 square feet of new leases signed by NextSeed, Joule Processing, SkillGigs and Marker Therapeutic. Together these tenants signal growing demand for flexible office, lab and tech-enabled spaces within the campus.
