Air Liquide Moving U.S. Headquarters

 

By JENNY AGEE-ALDRIDGE

HOUSTON – Industrial gas manufacturer Air Liquide will move its U.S. headquarters from the Galleria to Memorial City, an area that is seeing a lot of recent action.

The French company said Thursday it will move into Air Liquide Center, which will include a 20-story, 452,000-square-foot tower and a 145,000-square-foot tower at 9811 and 9807 Katy Freeway. Groundbreaking is scheduled for this month, according to the company’s statement, and the project is expected to be complete by November 2015.

The new development is at the southwest corner of Interstate 10 and Memorial City Way, just east of Memorial City Mall. Late last year, businesses at that site shuttered to make way for a new tower, though MetroNational Corp. would not verify its plans for the site at the time.

Air Liquide’s current location is at 2700 Post Oak Blvd.

“This move marks an exciting new chapter in Air Liquide’s history as our business continues to rapidly grow and evolve,” Michael Graff, chairman and CEO of American Air Liquide Holdings Inc. and Air Liquide senior vice president for the Americas, said in the company’s statement. “We are investing in our future, ensuring the right environment, space and resources to support our talented workforce and continue to enable the highest level of innovation and service for our customers.”

Doug Elliott and Kevin Kushner of CBRE represented Air Liquide in the transaction.

Air Liquide is the fourth major publicly traded company to move to Memorial City in the past two years, representing 750,000 total square feet of office space, Randy Nerren, executive vice president at MetroNational, said in the statement.

Most recently, Murphy Oil Corp.’s (NYSE: MUR) subsidiary Murphy Exploration & Production Co. relocated 500 employees to a new tower. Nexen’s headquarter relocation from Plano, Texas, to Memorial City won a Landmark Award from Houston Business Journal, and Houston-based Cobalt International Energy Inc. (NYSE: CIE) moved from the Galleria area to Memorial City in 2012.

Memorial City has seen a recent flurry of activity with MetroNational announcing it will build a Hotel ZaZa in the area, and Gateway Memorial City holding its ribbon-cutting ceremony on Jan. 30. Two restaurants also recently opened in the 90,000-square-foot mixed-use project, which is located just west of Memorial City Mall.

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