HOUSTON – NRG, an electric power company, is moving its Houston offices into 431,000 SF in the 910 Louisiana tower, a 50-story downtown tower that has been known for years as One Shell Plaza.
NRG will be vacating its existing offices in GreenStreet mixed-use complex in downtown where NRG occupies about 250,000 SF of office space. The owners of GreenStreet plan to reconfigure that office space, bringing it more in-line with the today designs of “creative office” space.
NRG’s move into the former One Shell Plaza building represents a positive move for the downtown Houston office market. The tower has some 800,000-SF of vacant sublease space left behind by Shell. It is the biggest single block of sublease space in Houston, which has some 11 million SF of sublease space, more than any other city in the nation.
“NRG is pleased to announce that its downtown Houston offices plan to come together in a single location at the recently-renovated 910 Louisiana Street building in downtown Houston,” NRG said in a statement. The consolidation move will occur in the spring of 2018.
Shell Oil was represented by Tim Relyea, Joe Peddie and Morgan Relyea of Cushman & Wakefield.
Busycon Properties is the owner of the tower, which is 98 percent leased. Colvill Office Properties and Hines also assisted in the deal, which is one of the biggest sublease deals ever.
Houston lawyers Patrick Sharkey and Amanda Sheneman of Jackson Walker LLP advised NRG on the sublease deal. NRG’s in-house counsel on the deal was Scott Thomas.
The One Shell Plaza building was the first major skyscraper developed by master developer Gerald D. Hines. The 1.6 million SF tower was completed in 1971. Hines also built a companion building, the 26-story Two Shell Plaza, which was recently redeveloped and renamed 811 Louisiana.
At 910 Louisiana, a $40 million improvement program was completed to the common areas and infrastructure of the building a few years ago. This new NRG lease, one of the largest office leases signed in recent years, represents significant progress in filling the former Shell space.
The departure of NRG from GreenStreet, 1201 Fannin, opens the door for a redevelopment of the mixed-use project, which was originally developed as Houston Pavilions.
The Houston-based firms, Midway and Lionstone Investments, own GreenStreet, a 570,000-SF mixed-use project that is being evaluated by architects for significant improvement.
“Lionstone and Midway engaged a team including Gensler and Streetsense to design the four-city-block urban campus with dramatically redefined interior and exterior spaces from the ground floor to the office tower and attached parking garage,” the GreenStreet owners said in a statement. “The next phase of GreenStreet’s re-envisioning, which started under its new ownership in 2015, will maximize the experience of GreenStreet as the most attractive alternative to traditional office environments in downtown.”