Houston: CBRE Texas Office Special Report Sept. 2014

HOUSTON – As home to half of Texas’s 52 Fortune 500 companies, corporate expansion and relocation activity in Houston was the highest in Texas by square feet (sf) since 2010, according to the Texas Office Special Report Sept. 2014 released by CBRE.

Activity totaled 12.6 million sf in deals by 89 companies since 2010. This activity has steadily increased with year-to-date activity in 2014 at 3.4 million sf, nearly equal to the total for all of 2013.

The CBD leads Houston area activity with 37 percent, or 4.6 million sf, of corporate expansions and relocations of which 4.2 million sf was occupied by energy firms. The Energy Corridor was second, accounting for 15 percent of activity, or 1.8 million sf.

The energy industry overall accounted for 80 percent of the activity in Houston.

Energy firms have completed 6.8 million sf of transactions set for occupancy in 2015 and 2016, including ExxonMobil’s 3.1 million-sf campus in the North submarket and nearly 500,000 sf of preleased space in the Hughes Landing development in The Woodlands.

Houston has experienced the strongest employment growth over the decade ending July 2014, adding nearly 614,000 jobs for a 26.9 percent growth rate. For context, this job growth rate is nearly five times the national pace.

For the full Texas report, see Texas Office: Special Report Sept. 2014 (PDF).

Also see more office commercial data at Houston Market Data Sources.