Development companies in and near the The Woodlands, a 28,000-acre community north of Houston, are drawing up plans for speculative buildings in preparation for the influx of tenants as a result of Exxon Mobil Corp.’s (NYSE: XOM) new 385-acre corporate campus.
The campus is under construction just south of The Woodlands, and the Irving-based company said it will begin relocating employees from Fairfax, Va.; Akron, Ohio; and the Houston area in shifts starting in early 2014. The Woodlands Development Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Dallas-based Howard Hughes Corp. (NYSE: HHC), have been planning and constructing the company’s master-planned community for the last 38 years.
Plans for its newest development, dubbed Hughes Landing, include up to seven office buildings, a hotel, retail locations and multifamily housing on 66 acres of land on Lake Woodlands’ east shore.
The company will begin construction on the project’s first building, One Hughes Landing, in November. It is being designed by San Francisco-based Gensler, which has an office in Houston, and will be built on a speculative basis. The building will be eight stories, with more than 195,000 square feet of Class A office space. Construction is slated for completion in the fourth quarter of 2013.
The Woodlands-based HALBERDIER Real Estate also has projects popping up based on projections circled around the Exxon Mobil campus.
“We have a handful of office developments in and around the Exxon Mobil impact radius,” said Trey Halberdier, managing principal at HALBERDIER. “Those call for anywhere from 80,000 to 275,000 square feet of office and flex-industrial space between the five different sites we’re working on.”
Halberdier also said the significant demand of prospective developments will be supported by the vendors of Exxon Mobil.