ROUNDING UP VIRGINIA AND OHIO WORKERS, SENDING THEM TO NORTH HOUSTON 
The official tally of ExxonMobil employees who’ll be working out of the company’s enormous new campus just south of The Woodlands is now up to 10,000, approximately 2,000 more than reported last year. The company announced today that beginning in early 2014, workers from ExxonMobil facilities in Fairfax, Virginia, and Akron, Ohio, will be relocated to buildings now under construction in a new forest clearing west of the intersection of I-45 and the Hardy Toll Rd. Also being brought up to breathe the fresh Spring air: some employees currently working in ExxonMobil’s chemical and research & engineering companies at the Baytown refinery. ExxonMobil says it’ll expand its 385-acre campus to make room for the recently announced newcomers. [Marketwatch; previously on Swamplot] Rendering of new Energy Center: ExxonMobil
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Tag: ExxonMobil
EXXONMOBIL’S HUMBLE GIFT TO THE CITY? 
What will happen to its well-shaded 44-story downtown headquarters building at 800 Bell St., once ExxonMobil decamps for the new campus the oil giant is building at Houston’s northern reaches? The company “has not announced what will happen to its downtown building,” writes longtime real estate reporter Ralph Bivins about the iconic 1963 tower that houses at its top the storied Petroleum Club. “One of the most interesting rumors we’ve heard about it is that Exxon Mobil will donate the building to the City of Houston for municipal offices. You know, we can’t sell it, so let’s just give it to Annise Parker instead.” [Culturemap] Photo: Flickr user lc_db
COMMENT OF THE DAY: FEELING THE ENERGY ALL AROUND HOUSTON “I see nothing wrong with XOM making the move to the Woodlands area. It now creates a third energy corridor in the Houston metro area, and a different environment in which to recruit. CBD has Chevron, BG, Shell, El Paso, Enterprise, etc. Woodlands now will have Anadarko & XOM. BP and service companies are located on the west side. Now you have can have real options on living close to where you work — and the type of lifestyle that you want.” [DJ, commenting on Urban Escape: An ExxonMobil Video Tour and Explanation for Its Enormous New Houston Forest Campus]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: EXXONMOBIL’S NEW PINE-FRESH SCENT “. . . And about those trees. Those are shit trees. I know because I grew up around them, they’re second growth pines that shed pine needles half the year, and disgorge nasty pollen for weeks. They’re not Sequoias. They’re not the original Big Thicket and old growth pine and cypress species. I hate those pine trees.” [Scott Bodenheimer, commenting on Urban Escape: An ExxonMobil Video Tour and Explanation for Its Enormous New Houston Forest Campus]
Yes, ExxonMobil “values the environment.” That’s why the company is building this 385-acre pedestrian-friendly campus with an “urban vibe” — in the middle of the forest 20 miles north of Houston.
- Previously on Swamplot: Welcome to the Land of ExxonMobil: A Tour of the Company’s New North Houston Campus, ExxonMobil Fesses Up to Its Employees About That New North Houston Campus It’s Been Building, ExxonMobil’s Top Secret New Corporate Campus Now Hiding in Plain Sight on Google Maps, Aerial Views of ExxonMobil’s New Sprawling, Top Secret Houston Headquarters, A First Look at the Plans for ExxonMobil’s Humongous New Corporate Campus North of Houston, How Springwoods Village Will Earn Its Lunch Money, and other Secrets of the Great ExxonMobil Frontiers, Who’s Behind Springwoods Village, Anyway?, Is Springwoods Village the New Exxon Mobil Eco-City?, Spawn of the Grand Parkway: Huge New Woodlands-Like Development, Just South of The Woodlands
Video: ExxonMobil, via Loren Steffy
FULL SPEED AHEAD ON THE GRAND PARKWAY, WITH EXXONMOBIL AT 12 O’CLOCK A 12.1-mile segment of Houston’s newest and largest ring road, connecting the new ExxonMobil campus to the Tomball Parkway — and eventually to Katy — should be open by 2015, says the executive director of the Grand Parkway Association. TxDOT should start acquiring rights of way along Segment F-2 between Hwy. 249 and I-45 later this year, and construction will likely begin within 2 years, David Gornet tells Nancy Sarnoff. [Houston Chronicle; more info]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: YOU GO TO WORK WITH THE SPRAWL YOU HAVE, NOT THE CITY YOU MIGHT WANT OR WISH TO HAVE AT A LATER TIME “. . . The ExxonMobil development is right in between The Woodlands and Spring. Residents of these communities would cut 30-80 minutes off their round trip commute by working at the new facility versus going downtown. That is a very significant reduction in smog forming vehicle emissions. If a business doesn’t need to be in Houston’s central business district, then it is actually better to have them build closer to the work force than to cram more people on the highway for longer commutes. You can’t beat sprawl that is already here. The best you can do is mitigate it by creating smaller city centers in places like The Woodlands, Sugar Land and Clear Lake.” [Old school, commenting on Comment of the Day: ExxonMobil Takes the Forest]
That floating central portion of the new gateway “Energy Center” planned for the entrance to ExxonMobil’s just-acknowledged new office campus in Spring only looks like it’s touching down after an outer-space tour of possible new energy sources. Or is the structure’s “Look, Ma, no feet” stance meant to communicate the company’s attitude toward whatever stuff might be lurking on the ground — or below it? The welcome center, which will include a reception area, training and conference facilities, and a formal restaurant, “has been designed to represent the ExxonMobil brand for the long term,” an internal company memo declares. Well, hello up there!
The campus was planned and designed by New Haven architects Pickard Chilton, with local firms PDR and the Houston office of Gensler. Hargreaves Associates created the landscape plan. More images of buildings now under construction by Gilbane and Harvey on the company’s 385-acre campus near the intersection of I-45, the Hardy Toll Rd., and the likely path of the future Grand Parkway loop road:
An email sent out early this morning to all U.S.-based ExxonMobil employees provides the first acknowledgment by the company’s management of what’s been a remarkably open secret: that the oil giant is building a giant new office campus south of The Woodlands. Actually, the email simply announces that the company is “proceeding with construction” of the project — a fact that should have been apparent to anyone who’s explored a Google map of the area recently, or driven past the small army of construction cranes visible from behind a mask of trees on the western edge of I-45 near the start of the Hardy Toll Rd. and the likely path of the Grand Parkway. (The reader photo shown above dates from several weeks ago.)
While thousands of ExxonMobil employees wait patiently to hear confirmation from the oil giant’s tight-lipped management about their rumored “possible” consolidation in a brand-new enormous office campus just south of The Woodlands, aerial photos that show work proceeding on the site have shown up in an update to Google Maps. The photo update appears to be relatively recent; it shows a level of clear-cutting similar to what was evident in the images leaked to Swamplot last month, which dated from March 12:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: EXXONMOBIL OFFICE PARK CONSTRUCTION REPORT “On [my way] in to work this morning, driving south on 45 and going over the Rayford/Sawdust bridge, I could clearly see a crane poking out above the trees in the Exxon campus area.” [Jessie M, commenting on Aerial Views of ExxonMobil’s New Sprawling, Top Secret Houston Headquarters]
What’s been going on deep in this pine forest north of Houston, behind the fencing and security guards, where all those trucks have been driving in and out for months? A whole lot of logging at least, it looks like. While ExxonMobil continues to tell its employees that no decisions have yet been made about whether to consolidate approximately 17,000 of them from Houston and Virginia into a new 3 million sq. ft. office campus just south of The Woodlands, contractors working for the company have been stripping what looks like thousands of trees from its 359-acre property and preparing the site for construction of as many as 2 dozen office buildings, 4 enormous parking garages, and several other structures. These aerial photos of the site sent to Swamplot are dated March 12th.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THIS LAND IS THEIR LAND “Heard about it. Shouldn’t matter who the purchaser is, in fact, after reading your comments, it is probably more fair all around if they do not disclose who they are. Posters on this site are quite amazing. I am astonished daily in what they seem to feel they are entitled to when it comes to property owned by others. And how much Swamplot originators do to creatively stir the pot.” [LudiKris, commenting on How Does a Public Notice About ExxonMobil’s Giant New Corporate Campus Stay Under the Radar?]
A show of hands, please: How many of you knew about the public notice posted by the Army Corps of Engineers this January asking for comments on environmental issues related to the new 389-acre office campus that ExxonMobil plans to build for its employees north of Houston, just south of Spring Creek? If you heard about the permit application before the February 17th commenting deadline, please let us know — just add a comment to this story.
Why is Swamplot asking?
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HEARD IT HERE FIRST “Keep up the interesting news on the ExxonMobil property. I work for XOM and they’re telling us NOTHING!” [Insider, commenting on A First Look at the Plans for ExxonMobil’s Humongous New Corporate Campus North of Houston]