2 Energy Companies Renew 158K SF In Leases At Downtown Office Tower
Two energy companies renewed their leases in Downtown Houston’s 1001 Fannin, counter to a trend that’s led many such companies to downsize their offices and move to different areas of town.
Chord Energy renewed its 103K SF lease at 1001 Fannin, which serves as its headquarters. Chord has been in the building for more than 16 years, Cushman & Wakefield’s Chip Colvill said in a news release.
Black Stone Minerals Co. renewed its 55K SF lease at the same building in a space that also serves as its headquarters. The company has been a tenant for more than three decades, Colvill said in the release.
Black Stone Minerals is an oil and gas mineral rights company with more than 20 million acres throughout the country. Chord Energy is a hydrocarbon exploration company that focuses on fracking in the Williston Basin in North Dakota and Montana, which was formed last year by the merger of Whiting Petroleum and Oasis Petroleum.
These re-leases and Callon Petroleum Co.’s move to an upsized, 107K SF headquarters in the Memorial City area are outliers amid a trend of energy companies downsizing.
Energy giant Exxon Mobil Corp. is using less than half of the space available at its 385-acre campus in Spring, and it was considering selling or leasing much of the space late last year. In the San Antonio area, NewFound Partners is planning to develop about 194 acres that Exxon used to use for refining into industrial buildings, Houston Business Journal reported.
Midsized companies have consolidated their operations as well, with Apache Corp. moving its headquarters from Post Oak to BriarLake Plaza in 2024, a move that could shrink its Houston presence by more than 50%.
Other downsizes in 2022 include pipeline company Enbridge, which shrunk from 600K SF to 293K SF, and Baker Hughes, which consolidated and scaled down its office space by 62%.
However, Black Stone and Chord’s lease renewals do align with the flight-to-quality trend since the owners of 1001 Fannin recently completed a multimillion-dollar renovation, according to the news release.
“In addition to renewing tenants like Chord Energy and Black Stone Mineral Company, we are seeing strong leasing activity from new tenant prospects as a result of the renovations,” Colvill said in the release.
Renovations include a revitalization of the building’s lobby and tunnel levels, a lobby-level coffee shop, new tenant lounge areas with collaboration spaces, a fitness center and an outdoor tenant plaza.
Bradley Arant Boult Cummings in February reupped its lease and moved within the JPMorgan Chase Tower after that downtown building was also renovated.
Cushman & Wakefield represented all parties in Black Stone and Chord's lease negotiations. Brad Beasley and Colvill represented the landlord. Chad Beck represented Chord Energy and Trey Strake, David Guion and Chris Oliver represented Black Stone Minerals Co.
