Anadarko Petroleum Corp. is close to breaking ground on a second office tower at its headquarters campus in The Woodlands, a spokesman said Wednesday.
The independent oil and gas company said the new tower will prepare the company for anticipated growth and hiring.
“As we looked out over the coming years and the growth that we’re projecting from our assets … we knew we were going to be needing additional office space to accommodate people working on these projects as they continue to grow,” Anadarko’s John Christiansen said.
The office development – one of several planned for this master-planned community – will be at the corner of Lake Robbins Drive and Woodloch Forest Drive, just west of its 30-story headquarters building at 1201 Lake Robbins. Site preparation is already under way.
Preliminary designs call for a 31-story building ready in early in 2014. That’s big enough to house about 1,700 workers, Christiansen said. Architecture firm Gensler is designing the building, and Harvey Builders will construct it.
Anadarko already owns and occupies more than 1 million square feet in two buildings in The Woodlands and leases space in a third. The properties house about 2,300 employees.
Anadarko has grown significantly since its acquisitions of Kerr-McGee and Western Gas Resources in 2006. It employs about 4,800 people worldwide.
The new project is one of several office developments planned or recently completed in The Woodlands.
Talisman Energy USA will occupy 218,000 square feet in two new buildings in Research Forest Lakeside, a 77-acre business park designed for multiple buildings with 1.8 million square feet of mostly office space. The company is making The Woodlands location the main office for its Eagle Ford shale development program.
The Woodlands Development Co. soon will begin construction of 3 Waterway Square Place. The 192,000-square-foot, nine-story building will be at the corner of Lake Robbins Drive and Woodloch Forest Drive in The Waterway Square District.
Nexeo Solutions, a chemical company, has leased the top three floors of the building.
According to CB Richard Ellis, the vacancy rate for office space in The Woodlands is 7.7 percent. For the area’s best buildings it’s about 2.5 percent, said Alex Sutton, president of The Woodlands Development Co.
The largest office development in the area is just south of The Woodlands. Exxon Mobil Corp. is building a campus on several hundred acres near Interstate 45 and the Hardy Toll Road.
nancy.sarnoff@chron.com twitter.com/nsarnoff
Great company, extraordinary management, and they are an American company providing American jobs. Thank you Anadarko Petroleum Corporation for the service that you provide the citizens of this nation and the world.
Thank you Steven. We petro companies continue to require your fealty & obedience to execute our purpose of serving the citizens of this nation and world, …er, make tons of money.
I wish they would have built it in the Energy Corridor area around I-10 and Dairy Ashford. I need a job, but that’s too far a drive from the Katy area — for me at least, I have night blindness and don’t dare drive on the freeways at night.
Whilst I applaud the expansion of two of the area’s largest employers, we should look forward to this area to begin looking more like the Katy freeway, with its 23 lanes of traffic, vertical paving of billboards and the smog that comes from all those cars burning all their oil product. Also odd and unfair that with dozens of excellent buiders and designers in the area, that Anadarko has chosen ExxonMobil’s team to work for them too. The rich get richer…
I want to be part of the rich, and not on the governments/envirogrennies dole. Drill Drill Drill