HOUSTON – (Realty News Report) – Occidental Petroleum has reversed its plan to relocate its headquarters to the Energy Corridor and will sell the recently acquired campus instead, a company official confirmed.
CFO Cedric Burgher, speaking at an energy conference in Denver, said the Houston-based company will put the 62-acre property on the market. The campus includes more than a dozen low-rise buildings totaling about 1.4 million square feet of office space and sits near Interstate 10 at North Dairy Ashford. Occidental purchased the site earlier this year.
The decision follows last week’s $38 billion acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum.
Burgher added that the company intends to keep the two 30-story Anadarko towers in The Woodlands.
Occidental currently occupies space in Greenway Plaza inside the Beltway. About a year ago the company listed 814,000 square feet of office space—located at 5 Greenway and 3 Greenway—on the sublease market. With the latest sales decision, however, it appears likely the sublease will be withdrawn and Occidental will remain at Greenway Plaza for the foreseeable future.
Occidental purchased the Energy Corridor campus from ConocoPhillips, which relocated to the Energy Center Four building on Eldridge.
Adding this 1.4 million square feet to the available inventory increases supply in Houston’s office market, which has been under pressure. Avison Young reported that the city’s overall office market experienced more than 800,000 square feet of negative absorption in the second quarter.
Aug. 14, 2019 Realty News Report Copyright 2019
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