Houston Chronicle: Shell workers settle in at hotel: Oil giant leases vacant Radisson in west Houston: “While corporations were quick to lease big blocks of Houston-area apartments for their displaced employees after Hurricane Katrina, Shell Oil Co. has found another place to house its workers: a vacant hotel.”: Posted Sunday 9 October 2005
By NANCY SARNOFF
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
While corporations were quick to lease big blocks of Houston-area apartments for their displaced employees after Hurricane Katrina, Shell Oil Co. has found another place to house its workers: a vacant hotel.
The oil giant is leasing the former Radisson in west Houston for some of its 750 employees who temporarily relocated here from New Orleans.
The 173-room property, near the Katy Freeway and Beltway 8, was recently acquired by Houston-based real estate firm MetroNational.
The property had closed, but the real estate company reopened it so Shell could use it for housing.
Shell spokeswoman Darci Sinclair wouldn't say exactly how long the company was leasing the property, other than the terms were "flexible."
However, she said it has no plans to permanently relocate these employees to Houston.
"It's all temporary," Sinclair said.
"We do intend to return to New Orleans."
No dent in vacancies
Owners of office buildings predicted last month the influx of hurricane evacuees would cause property vacancies to plummet.
The thinking was that Houston companies with operations in New Orleans would lease additional space to accommodate their visiting employees.
But that's yet to happen.
There's still plenty of space available in two of the biggest office markets in town.
Downtown and the Galleria area have vacancy rates of 20 percent and 16 percent, respectively, according to CBRE/Trione & Gordon.
"I'm not seeing a giant influx," said Timothy Relyea of Cushman & Wakefield in Houston, explaining that some companies have enough excess work space to house additional people.
Even though it has hundreds of employees working here temporarily, Shell said it's not leasing any more office space. About half of the employees are working in Shell's downtown offices, with others in locations throughout the city, Shell spokeswoman Sinclair said.
That's common in these situations, said Sanford Criner of CBRE/Trione & Gordon.
He points to the leasing market in Manhattan after the Sept. 11 attacks, when experts said most of New York City's other buildings would fill up with tenants from the World Trade Center.
But that didn't happen, as companies either shared offices with their clients, used extra space they were leasing elsewhere, or their employees telecommuted.
"What seemed so obvious wasn't," Criner said.
"People find other ways to do things."
Pearland retail growth
Pearland is becoming quite the retail hub.
Just months after Foley's and Dillard's announced they were building stores there, J.C. Penney has jumped on board.
The Plano-based retailer is putting a location at The Crossing at 518, a shopping center at the intersection of Texas 288 and F.M. 518 that's being developed by Cencor Realty Services.
The store is expected to open late next summer, said J.C. Penney spokesman Quinton Crenshaw.
The location will follow a new design the retailer has started using in stores located outside shopping malls.
Geared toward convenience, the aisles will be wider and the cashiers will be at the front of the store.
It also will have a salon and portrait studio.
A similar J.C. Penney store just opened in Katy, near the corner of the Grand Parkway and Interstate 10.
Crenshaw said with fewer malls being built around the country, the company created the new design for "off-mall" locations.
He said Pearland was a perfect fit for the company, which targets consumers between the ages of 35 to 54 who have annual household incomes between $35,000 and $85,000.
The new store will be near the 700,000-square-foot Pearland Town Center, an open-air shopping mall that will be anchored by Foley's and Dillard's.
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