Meet the largest employers in West Houston
Energy and engineering firms make up the majority of employers on HBJ’s Largest Employers in West Houston List, and both industries face uncertainty due to slumping oil prices.
“At risk jobs are concentrated in west Houston,” said Bill Gilmer, director at the Institute for Regional Forecasting at the University of Houston. “We’ll go through a period of difficulty. We need to see oil prices back up in 2017 and 2018.”
However, there is still plenty of development underway in the area, which HBJ defined as the Westchase District, Memorial City, the Energy Corridor and Katy. We talked to experts in each of those submarkets for the Feb. 20 special section on West Houston.
In addition, HBJ reporter Suzanne Edwards sat down with Marc Watts, president of The Friedkin Companies Inc., one of the largest employers in West Houston, who said the automotive business is booming.
Top 25 West Houston employers by industry
Energy: 24%
Engineering: 24%
Health care: 16%
Retail: 12%
Tech and services: 8%
Chemicals: 8%
Manufacturing and distribution: 8%
Source: HBJ
The Energy Corridor
The Energy Corridor has pulled back a bit on development as the energy industry battens the hatches and waits out the oil slump. David Hightower, executive vice president and chief development officer at Houston-based Wolff Cos., has been instrumental in the growth of the Energy Corridor and has seen the booms and busts since he joined Wolff in 1980.
What can we expect from the Energy Corridor during the oil slump? Yes, we’re going to see some softness over the next 12 to 24 months, but, long term, it’s a great market, and I’m very bullish.
Obviously the energy companies are going through a time of challenge and transition, adjusting to the new economics. We’ve seen all of the articles about the employment changes that are occurring right now as a result of that.
Do you think the market is overbuilt? Had we gone another two years at 100,000 jobs, we would have definitely overbuilt. This pulled us back from the cliff. It won’t take much time to absorb once it kicks back up.
720,000 SF: Size of Shell Oil Co.’s two 12-story buildings that delivered in the fourth quarter at the energy company’s existing Woodcreek campus on Dairy Ashford and Interstate 10. The new buildings bring Shell’s campus to 1.1 million square feet in 11 buildings. Shell is the largest employer in West Houston.
1.2 million SF: Size of two buildings preleased by ConocoPhillips in the Energy Corridor at the southwest corner of Interstate 10 and North Eldridge Parkway
For the complete article, please go to:
http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/print-edition/2015/02/20/meet-the-largest-employers-in-west-houston.html