Fluor Adds 105K Square Feet to West Houston Office Footprint

An engineering and construction firm has significantly expanded its footprint in West Houston’s Energy Corridor, where a slew of companies have relocated in recent years.

Fluor added about 104,700 square feet to its lease at Two Eldridge, a 14-story Class A office building at 757 North Eldridge Parkway that’s now 95 percent leased, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Fluor will now occupy nearly 413,000 square feet in Granite Properties’ Eldridge office complex. The company will move to its new space when its lease in the southwest suburb of Sugar Land, where it has operated for 40 years, expires at the end of June.

“Fluor’s projected growth, both locally and globally, has continued to increase as a result of significant new project awards, beyond what was originally envisioned when we started investigating options for our relocation,” a company spokesperson told the outlet.

Fluor’s Houston workforce rose by 450 to 1,600 last year, and it aims to hire an additional 350 employees in the city. Approximately 85 percent of Fluor’s workers operate from the office, while 5 percent work remotely, and 10 percent follow a hybrid-work arrangement.

Fluor’s move to the Energy Corridor aligns with its goal to be closer to clients in the energy sector and to attract talent from nearby engineering firms. The company’s Sugar Land office complex, located near Highway 6 and Highway 59, is being redeveloped into a mixed-use campus by Planned Community Development.

While Downtown Houston grapples with skyrocketing office vacancies amid the remote-work era, tough lending standards and other economic challenges, the Energy Corridor has enjoyed a slew of lease signings since last year. Through October, the Energy Corridor accounted for 26 percent of all Houston office deals exceeding 10,000 square feet, the outlet reported.

In April, French engineering and technology company Technip Energies leased 171,600 square feet across six floors in the 14-story West Memorial Place II. Dutch geo-data company Fugro and Diamond Offshore Drilling also committed to the Energy Corridor last year, leasing a combined 137,000 square feet.

—Quinn Donoghue