CHEVRON TO SELL OLD BELLAIRE CAMPUS, ALL THAT NEW LAND ON CLAY RD. Nancy Sarnoff notes this afternoon that Chevron will be selling off that 103-acre Clay Rd. tract it bought in 2014, along with the company’s Fournace Place campus in Bellaire (whose sale was noted last week by Michelle Leigh Smith).  Despite assurances last year that the office midrise at 4800 Fournace would remain occupied, the company says it will move all of those employees to some of its downtown offices by the end of next year, and will start shopping it around in October. Leigh also notes some of the 28-acre property’s recorded history, including the 1940s and 50s laboratory buildings previously demolished on the site, and Chevron’s (then Texaco’s) purported 1970s request to the Bellaire city council to rename the road to something not reminiscent of their competitor Gulf Oil — the property was originally listed on Gulfton St., which now changes abruptly to Fournace Pl. at of the intersection with S. Rice Ave. [Houston Chronicle; Southwest News via Realty News Report] Photo of Chevron’s office tower at 1500 Louisiana St., previously Enron Center South: Jordan R.
Was the Gulfton neighborhood really named for Gulf Oil?
Thanks, Walker — tweaked the phrasing to clarify that (per Smith) Texaco didn’t like the similarity, not that there was an actual connection to the company.
The Texaco office building on Fournace was I believe designed by Gene Aubrey who was a partner at the time at Morris and Associates. It was the baby of Morris and Associates partner Jim Heaton. Who worked on it as the project architect for many years through completion. Jim Heaton retired after that, but returned to work to help Bill Kendall after the tragic death of his partner Hal Weatherford. KWA changed its name to Kendall/Heaton Associates to reflect this change. Now you know the rest of the story.