High-rise seen as workplace of the future
Capitol Tower will have new name when it opens downtown in 2019
The 35-story Capitol Tower will have a food hall with fare from local chefs, skyline views for 90 percent of the offices, a fitness center and a new name when it opens downtown in 2019.
“For the user experience, Capitol Tower is tomorrow’s workplace today.” Matt Damborsky, executive vice president for developer Skanska USA
DOWNTOWN’S Capitol Tower will bring a food hall with fare from local chefs, skyline views for 90 percent of the offices, a fitness center and a new name when it opens in 2019.
“Right now we’re pouring about a floor a week,” Matt Damborsky, executive vice president for developer Skanska USA, said during a “skybreaking” ceremony last week to mark progress on the 35-story skyscraper taking shape at 800 Capitol downtown.
Concrete has been poured for five floors of office space and 10 floors of garage space. Skanska USA fast-tracked construction after securing Bank of America as the anchor tenant in April.
The North Carolina-based bank will lease 210,000 of the building’s 754,000 square feet of space as it consolidates operations from Bank of America Center at 700 Louisiana, 1221 McKinney and 600 Travis. Employees will be in one building and can talk at the water cooler or in collaborative work areas, an executive said.
“We feel like if U.S. Trust, Merrill Lynch, Global Banking and Investments, Retail and Home Loans sit together,
we can better serve our clients,” said Hong Ogle, Bank of America’s Houston president.
“We’re all going to be in one building where we can actually chat to solve our clients’ needs.”
The collaborative environment being created at the Gensler-designed tower helped land Bank of America as a tenant and pay to have its name included, Damborsky said. The formal name of the tower will be announced closer to the opening.
“For the user experience, Capitol Tower is tomorrow’s workplace today,” Damborsky said.
The new building signifies Bank of America’s commitment to Houston, a market it has targeted for expansion, Ogle said. The workspace, which also will take advantage of natural daylight, will be key to attracting top employees to the bank.
Skanska USA Commercial Development says the building will be the only one downtown with five separate connections to the city’s extensive tunnel system. Attendees at Thursday’s event included real estate brokers, developers and city officials. Guests watched a 360-degree video showing the two-story tunnel-level atrium take shape.
The tunnel atrium will be open not just to daytime office workers, but also patrons of the arts in the nearby Theater District and the public in general. It will feature 26,000 square feet of retail space, including the food hall, with local chef-driven concepts.
Capitol Tower also will provide a venue for events such as mini-symphonies or TED talks, Skanska said. The company expects to draw 40,000 visitors a week from the Theater District alone and will stay open after business hours.
Traditionally, the tunnels, which stretch more than 6 miles below downtown’s office buildings, have not been visible from the street.
The project, which sits on the block bounded by Capitol, Travis, Rusk and Milam, was formerly the site of the Houston Club, and before that, the 1908-vintage Bristol Hotel. Both were developments of Jesse Jones.
The project team includes Gensler, Wylie Consulting Engineers and Walter P. Moore.
Bob Eury, president of Central Houston, commended Skanska for moving forward despite the current glut of office space in Houston.
“New state-of-the-art product helps tremendously,” Eury said.