Major Upgrade Complete at 1415 Louisiana Building

Renovated lobby of 1415 Louisiana building in downtown Houston.

HOUSTON – The WEDGE Group completed a $10-million capital improvement effort at 1415 Louisiana, a 43-story Class A office tower in Houston’s Central Business District. Improvements were completed to the lobby, elevator cabs and tunnel space. The tower’s new lobby displays a 16’ x 22’ custom glass wall designed by renowned architectural glass artist, Paul Housberg.

Built in 1983 and renovated last in 1993, the 520,000-SF building is managed by Hines.

The tower has 170,000 SF of office space available. Chip Colvill, Connor Saxe and Vince Strake of Colvill Office Properties handle the leasing.

The renovation also includes a 3Form LightArt display suspended from the lobby ceiling.

“Rarely is an Architect given the opportunity to have such an influence on a person’s visual environment from garage elevator through the downtown tunnel up to the main lobby and to their office destination. Such was the case at 1415 Louisiana. We’re confident that both existing and future tenants will like the results,” said Ken Harry, whose firm was the architect for 1415 Louisiana’s renovations and recently merged with Abel Design Group.

A rapidly growing number of Houston landlords are undertaking major renovations of their office buildings in recent months as softness has developed in the Houston office market, said Scott Crain, vice president at Arch-Con Construction.

“In this tenant-friendly market, owners want to keep large tenants happy in order to renew or keep their lease. If a building has a lot of smaller tenants and no anchor tenant, they will take action to enhance their property in order to attract these larger tenants,” Crain said.

According to Colvill president and CEO Chip Colvill, “We are very excited about being part of the transformation of 1415 Louisiana. The renovations have created significant leasing activity for us and we are pursuing many new prospective tenants in the market. 1415 Louisiana is very competitively priced right now so tenant activity has been strong. Moreover, with Hines assuming management of the building, property management has been elevated as tenant representative brokers recognize Hines as being the leader in property management, which is good for their clients.”