Pieces of the fencing surrounding the MacKie and Kamrath-designed ExxonMobil Upstream Research facility on Buffalo Spdwy. were spotted sprawled out on the grass yesterday along the campus perimeter after being plucked from their stations; more barriers are getting yanked up this morning, as seen in the second shot above. The property (which appears to have been transferred to the nonprofit Exxon Foundation in 2015 after the oil giant’s plans to offload the site were announced) was  sold this month to an entity directing its mail to real estate investment and development firm Spear Street Capital. A couple of readers report that other major shuffling around and cleaning out appear to have been going on at the facility for at least the last few weeks, with vehicles bearing the Precision Demolition logo making periodic guest appearances on the scene.
Across W. Alabama St. from the building’s more curvaceous end, the spot occupied until early last year by the empty shell of honky tonk Blanco’s has since been filled in with athletics stuff for St. John’s School:
***
- Exxon Mobil To Sell Prime Spots Ripe for Redevelopment [Houston Chronicle (2014)]
- Previously on Swamplot:Â ExxonMobil Fesses Up to Its Employees About That New North Houston Campus It’s Been Building;Â Is Springwoods Village the New Exxon Mobil Eco-City?
Photos: MontroseResident
So I guess the buyers want to renovate the building instead of tearing it down?
Pretty cool to think that this was once a classic suburban office park, surrounded by fields, and will now be one of the last parcels to redevelop at full urban density. Shows what you can do when people are allowed to build up *and* out.
Is the buyer confirmed as Spear Street Capital ?
Renovating a research lab is not that simple. Lot’s of weird stuff in those, especially the old ones. Not sure how many labs were at that site.
Decommissioning a chemistry lab is complex. The ‘weird stuff’ referred to may be toxic, teratogenic, carcinogenic, mutagenic, and/or radioactive. Even if a clean up were as efficient as 1 part in a billion, I still wouldn’t want to live, eat or work there.
FYI – they just started tearing down this structure. They started on 3/14/17. Spear Street Capital owns the land now and Transwestern has been selected as the developer. No renderings yet of what is to replace the former Exxon building. They started tearing down the newest section first and have already demoed the cooling towers on the north west corner of the property. Some windows are missing on the top levels of the oldest structure from the 1950s.