To attract a younger workforce back to the office, the traditionally conservative energy sector in Houston is transforming the way they think about the workplace.

Major energy companies are flocking to Houston’s west side, enticed by the availability of modern, spacious, and architecturally unique office spaces.  In the first quarter of 2024, three of the four largest office leasing transactions were made by energy companies on the west side of Houston, according to real estate brokerage Savills. Noble Corporation leased 110,000 sq. ft. at CityWestPlace, Flour leased 104,000 sq. ft. at Two Eldridge, and Enstor leased 43,000 sq. ft. at CityWest Place.

Noble has moved out of its Sugar Land office after two decades and leased a new, modern, and functional office that will provide more room to grow, according to the Houston Chronicle’s Marissa Luck. Noble spokesperson Christine Mathers said it “will also provide a proximity to home for more of our employee base with room to grow should we need to scale up in the future.”

But with the rise of hybrid work, companies are facing a tougher challenge in attracting younger and forward-thinking employees. These employees see the office not only as a place to work with colleagues but also as a space that should be aesthetically pleasing, easily accessible, and equipped with facilities for wellness and retail.

“People want to come back to a new kind of workplace. It’s got to be more than just somewhere they go to work, it’s got to be somewhere where they have a life. It’s life balance within the workplace,” said Joanne James Vice President of Communications for MetroNational.

MetroNational is a private, family-owned company that manages over 3.2 million square feet of office space located in Memorial City in west Houston. Additionally, it owns several million square feet of retail, hospitality, and medical space, which includes popular establishments such as Memorial City Mall, Hotel ZaZa, The Westin, and Memorial Hermann Memorial City Medical Center, all situated nearby.

Brad MacDougall, MetroNational’s Vice President of Office Leasing, stated the company has benefited from the westward shift due to its convenient location between the Energy Corridor and Downtown Houston. Just last year, MetroNational delivered a nine-story building at 9753 Katy Freeway, which was fully leased before completion. Callon Petroleum leased approximately 100,000 square feet, which was recently bought by Apache, another one of their clients.

“Post-COVID, we were one of the first ones back activating our buildings, and we saw return quickly back to the buildings. Since then we were able to lease back up to 95 percent across all of our buildings,” MacDougall said.

Since the pandemic recovery began, Houston companies have been at the forefront of the return-to-cubicle push. However, office leasing recovery has been uneven, affecting some submarkets more than others. Areas most affected by the high office vacancy rates are downtown and Uptown, where a lot of office buildings are struggling to hold on to tenants or in some cases being sold to auction to pay outstanding loans. According to a recent report by Moody’s Analytics, Houston has the highest empty office building rate in the U.S., with approximately 300 empty office buildings and availability of 54.5 million square feet of leasing space and another 5.7 million square feet of sublease availability.

A lot of those empty office buildings tend to be “functionally obsolete,” because they were made during the height of the tremendous growth in the oil industry in the 1970s until the early ’90s, and are part of a bygone corporate era of increased headcount and bloated departments. 

But some companies have found success in renovations, even if they’re not very extreme. Two years ago, MetroNational invested almost $30 million in renovating three office buildings built between the 1980s and 1990s and situated at the intersection of Gessner and Barryknoll Lane. The renovation’s goal was to enhance the experience of tenants by providing them with new spaces to work and socialize outside the office. The renovation modernized the lobbies and offered full-service conference centers and meeting rooms, a new covered outdoor dining patio with space for food trucks, a fitness center, and a Common Bond coffee shop. 

“We’ve spent a lot of capital on our existing buildings to attract tenants from downtown and 610. Along with people who want to be closer to their homes… we have really benefited from having a lot of amenities inside the building and outside. We have a lot of new restaurants coming to Memorial City in the last three to four years,” MacDougall said. 

The renovation efforts seem to have worked, attracting a big name in the tech hub space in Houston. The Cannon, a coworking space marketed to entrepreneurs, will open its second West Houston location in Memorial City at 840 Gessner on May 13. Although it has lost some tenants, Group 1 Automotive, a Fortune 300 automotive retailer, will move its HQ to Town Centre Two, a brand new building in Town and Country Village due to its need for a reconfiguration of its space. It will move next summer and sublease its floors with MetroNational for the remainder of its lease agreement.

MetroNational now plans to focus on increasing its technological features, hiring a whole new experience team to work on “open-path mobile credential,” so workers can us