Energy Corridor: Houston's Busiest Submarket?

The Energy Corridor’s activity is the strongest in the city, and will continue to be, says Lincoln Property SVP Kevin Wyatt. That's one of the mean reasons we’re excited to host Bisnow’s Future of the Energy Corridor event on Oct. 31 at the Omni Houston Westside, starting at 7am (Halloween morning). 

Lincoln delivered Energy Crossing I and II earlier this year, and already sold the 580k SF Class-A complex. It also just completed its first building at Park Ten Center, a three-story, 150k SF office property. Kevin (who’s speaking at our event) tells us it’s already 55% leased, he expects full lease-up and plans groundbreaking of Phase 2, a sister building, by the end of the year.

Kevin says he’s been primarily doing medium-sized deals in the 10k SF to 25k SF range. In Phase 1 of Park Ten Center (pictured, its groundbreaking), he’s locked in Tema Oil and Gas, IPT Global, Mastec, and Parsons Engineering. He’s already getting good activity on pre-leasing Phase 2, including some bigger tenants looking to take half or more of the building.

Avison Young principal Charlie Neuhaus and partner John Pasta are snapped checking out the Mastec build out in Park Ten Center yesterday morning. (They worked the deal opposite Kevin.) A recent deal just drove home the strength of the submarket for Charlie: A client downsized out of 22k SF and into 9k SF in a new building. The sublease was snapped up by a company for its first Houston location—Charlie (another panelist at our event) says it’s one of many companies that want into our market, and look at the Energy Corridor first.

Even though it only has four employees, the sublessor took down the whole 22k SF to accommodate future growth, an indicator that the highly saturated office market's driving tenants to lease more than they need.  Charlie says amenities need to be a focus in the Energy Corridor going forward—he has a good-sized client who’s been in the submarket for a while that’s looking to double, but hesitant because of the lack of benefits for employees. He believes this’ll push development to the next level (including more Class-A full-service office projects). To hear more, please join us for Bisnow’s Future of the Energy Corridor event on Oct 31 at the Omni Houston Westside, starting at 7am (Halloween morning). Sign up here!