Office tower breaks ground in Town and Country Village
A long-awaited office tower is breaking ground in Town and Country Village after the developer secured a key lease in the west Houston project in the latest example of tenants gravitating toward newer offices in mixed-use districts..
Greystar, a national apartment property manager and owner based in Charleston, S.C., has signed a 68,000 square-foot lease in the yet-to-be-built office tower, called Town Centre Two, at 730 Town & Country Boulevard. Greystar is relocating its Houston offices by early 2024 from a 41-year-old building about seven miles away at 750 Bering Drive, where it’s been for more than 15 years.
Moody Rambin and American National Insurance Company broke ground this month on the eight-story, 167,141square-foot tower. The building is within the 41-acre Town & Country Village mixed-use development owned and managed by Moody Rambin. Construction is expected to finish in the third quarter next year.
Marissa Luck
Device manufacturer cuts dozens of jobs
Merit Medical, a medical device manufacturer, plans to lay off more than 100 people at its Pearland facility.
Merit employs approximately 6,300 people worldwide, according to its website. Domestically, it has facilities in South Jordan, Utah, Richmond, Va., Aliso Viejo, Calif., and Pearland. It also has several locations in the Netherlands, France, China, Mexico and Canada.
The company will lay off workers at its Pearland facility because it is moving manufacturing operations to other Merit facilities, according to a letter to the Texas Workforce Commission. The layoffs are expected to happen in phases. Rebecca Carballo
Exxon, Shell unload joint venture
Oil majors Exxon Mobil and Shell are selling their joint venture oil and gas production company in California, Aera Energy, to a German asset manager, the companies said.
The total value of the deal was not disclosed, but Shell noted the sale of its nearly 52 percent interest is for a consideration of around $2 billion in cash “with additional contingent payments based on future oil prices, subject to regulatory approval.”
Aera Energy was created in 1997. Operations are mostly focused in the San Joaquin Valley in California, and Aera Energy produced around 95,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2021, according to Exxon. The sale is expected to close by the end of the year.
Kyra Buckley
New community coming in Conroe
A national homebuilder is opening a new community south of Lake Conroe as population growth in Montgomery County continues to attract new home construction.
Tri Pointe Homes, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders headquartered in Nevada, is launching a 95-acre single-family home community called Westridge Cove at 12019 Moonlight Path Drive in Conroe just south of Lake Conroe, about 17 miles north of The Woodlands. Plans call for building 335 homes priced between about $300,000 $386,000.
Population growth in Montgomery County fueling residential and commercial development. The county’s population has increased 42 percent since 2010, to about 649,000 from 455,000 in 2010, according to the Census. Marissa Luck