HOUSTON – Houston’s Energy Corridor is facing the same economic headwinds the rest of Houston and the country as a whole is facing; a glut of office space.
“I think you’re seeing this issue of office sort of repositioning based on how we work. And so, we are at this point we don’t fully know exactly where that’s going, but it’s very clear that we there’s after COVID, there is a different way that we work these days,” Bob Eury, Interim Executive Director of Energy Corridor District said.
Office space vacancy rates are higher in the Energy Corridor by about 2% than Houston as a whole, at 20.9% according to data released by the District.
For Lease signs dot the landscape in the West Houston business district.
Entire office buildings are vacant or nearly vacant, a phenomenon not unique to the Energy Corridor.
And there is competition.
“If you look at a CityCentre versus an energy corridor, currently it’s more of a stagnant place (Energy Corridor). But they are in the process of just redefining and revamping that, which I think will bring in a lot more new blood,” Michael McSorley, a veteran realtor who serves the area said.
But there are projects in the Energy Corridor that show the zone is evolving, including the re-imagining of a former BP occupied building into an apartment building. That project is underway now.
And the massive ConocoPhillips complex just north of I-10 has also been purchased and is in the early stages of being re-imagined into a mixed use enclave, similar to CityCentre, and it’s CityCentre’s developer that is behind the project.