Occidental Petroleum Leases 972,000 SF in Houston's Greenway Plaza - Extends to 2031

HOUSTON – (Realty News Report) – Occidental Petroleum, a Houston-based firm that has frequently changed its real estate plans, has extended the term of its huge office lease in Greenway Plaza.

Parkway Property Investments, LLC , which owns the 52-acre Greenway Plaza, announced Thursday that Occidental has signed an agreement to extend its 972,145-SF lease at the Five and Three Greenway Plaza buildings until 2031.

Since 1987, Occidental has been a tenant in Greenway Plaza, a 5 million-SF Inner Loop business park with 11 towers near the Southwest Freeway and Buffalo Speedway.

Parkway’s Rima Soroka, Director of Leasing, and Eric Siegrist, Managing Director of Leasing, negotiated the Occidental lease on behalf of Parkway.

“Anchoring Greenway Plaza with Occidental as the largest tenant and longest office lease in the campus is gratifying. We believe this transaction is a testament to Parkway’s continued investment in, and reimagination of, Greenway Plaza and further validates Greenway Plaza as a preeminent business community in the Sunbelt region,” stated Eric Siegrist.

Greenway Plaza is built on property blocked up by Kenneth Schnitzer of Century Development about 50 years ago. The assemblage, which included 500 single family homes, was a monumental feat in the history of Houston real estate.

Parkway has spent millions to upgrade Greenway Plaza with restaurants, meeting space and a 150,000-SF “Diamond Club” Lifetime Fitness.

Occidental’s real estate churn had generated numerous headlines over the last two years. After Occidental’s $38 billion acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum last August, Occidental took on ownership of Anadarko’s two 30-story office towers in The Woodlands. At the end of 2019, the two Anadarko buildings were sold to Howard Hughes Corp. Occidental continues to occupy one of the buildings and the other is now being re-leased to other tenants by Colliers International.

Also in 2019, Occidental bought and then sold the 70-acre, 1.4 million-SF ConocoPhillips campus in the Energy Corridor in West Houston. In July of 2018, Occidental put 800,000-SF of its Greenway Plaza space on the sublease market, but that was never completed and now Occidental has extended its commitment to Greenway.

With the severe decline in oil prices and worldwide demand dropping because of the coronavirus pandemic, Occidental announced workforce reductions this year, along with a number of other oil companies. One recent report placed industry-wide layoffs at 100,000 jobs during 2020. Not all of those jobs were in Houston, but the office market in the Energy Capital of the World has been hammered.

OXY’s stock was trading around $20 a share Thursday, far below its 52-week high of $54.