Almost daily now, corporations are picking new offices to move to in West Houston. The areas off Interstate 10 in the Energy Corridor, and near Westchase have seen 3.7 million square feet of office leasing activity in the last year, totaling about a third of such activity across the city.
Over 2.3 million square feet of that 3.7 million have come in just the last six months. President of the Great American Title Company Ronnie Matthews says there is a variety of reasons for why the west side is exploding with popularity.
"Growth over the last 20 years has been out west, and northwest. Offices now are having a chance to move with their leases up, and are consolidating spaces," he says. "They are going there because of high quality of building, the easiness of traffic with I-10, and because it is where the work force lives."
Plenty of national companies are making the move to the Bayou City, but most of the moves to the west side are companies with roots already in Houston. For example, Mattress Firm recently announced they ar emoving to a new headquarters in Westchase. Fluor Corporation based in Sugar Land, is moving to the area as well. Others include Diamond Offshore Drilling, Apache Corporation, Baker-Hughes, all just a few examples of many.
"A lot of these companies are not new to Houston, they are just moving to a new, better access area...and most, by the way, are taking less square footage than they have had in the past," he says.
But, why are these big companies taking less space? Well, thank the chaos caused by the pandemic.
"Employees are not coming to the office the way they used to...and it looks like work from home, to some degree, is here for the long term," he says.
But even without the pandemic, Matthews says this was a trend that started years ago.
"The growth for some time has been going to that Energy Corridor...where people want to live," he says. "It makes it easier to get to, and rent is just historically cheaper in the suburbs than it is for a building downtown."
These moves, while good for the companies, will then create some issues down the road.
"A lot of big cities are having the problem of too much office space...and, right now, there is no real plan for what you can do with an office building and what you convert it to," he says. "Some suggest condos, but it can cost more to renovate an old building, than to just build a new condo space. It is a major dilemma."
He says that problem presents itself even in that west Houston corridor, which still faces massive vacancy numbers.
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