Real Estate Rumblings
Oil giant's old grounds to be turned into a $1 billion development: From chemical campus to luxury digs?
The 35-acre Exxon Mobil Chemical campus on the Katy Freeway in west Houston has been purchased by a developer planning to build $1 billion mixed-use project with office buildings, shops, a hotel and residential units.
Houston-based PM Realty Group will be developing the site in conjunction with Atlas USA Holdings of Greenwich, Conn. The site is on the south side of the Katy Freeway and west of North Eldridge Parkway.
“Our vision is to create a strong sense of place within a premier business community. Here, all of the corporate user’s needs will be met in one location, unlike the single purpose office park that forces users into automobiles to obtain amenities and services,” says Dan Leverett of PM Realty Group.
Exxon Mobil Chemical will continue to use its offices there until 2015 when it relocates.
Plans for the project are not finalized, but the new development is expected to be an urban-styled project.
“Together, we intend to transform this highly desirable land into a distinctively special development, unparalleled in the Corridor, in which to live, work, play, and learn,” says Rick Kirk, PM Realty Group chairman and chief executive officer.
The site has frontage on Memorial Drive and Interstate 10 and it borders Terry Hershey Park.
Exxon Mobil Chemical will continue to use its offices there until 2015 when it relocates to the new Exxon Mobil campus, just south of The Woodlands.
Exxon Mobil is vacating a number of its office facilities around Houston, including its downtown skyscraper, to make the move to its new 400-acre campus on the north side of Houston The new Exxon Mobil campus, which will have three million square feet of office space in 20 new buildings, is reportedly the largest privately-owned construction project currently underway in the nation.
The Exxon Chemical site on the Katy Freeway is in the heart of Houston’s Energy Corridor, where scores of energy companies have their offices. A number of office buildings are under construction in the Energy Corridor and the vacancy rates in Energy Corridor office building have reached a record low of three percent, according to the CBRE Group.
