Industry News

Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. plans to break ground in spring 2001 on a new 195,000-sf eight-story headquarters building and parking garage at The Woodlands. The eight-acre site will accommodate approximately 600 employees, most relocating from Chevron's Tower facility in Houston. Completion of the project is scheduled for fall of 2002.

Motorola Inc. has plans to consolidate six of its Atlanta-area operations at a new corporate campus on 111 acres in Suwanee. Present plans include two six-story office structures and a 660,000-sf office warehouse. The campus is expected to accommodate as many as 3,500 employees when the consolidation is complete.

Industrial Light and Magic, the special-effects division of Lucasfilm, Ltd., will have a new home on 23 acres at San Francisco's historic Presidio. Site preparation, including demolition of the 10-story Letterman hospital, began in February 2001. The 900,000-sf campus will include offices, a 7-acre meadow, a restaurant, and a five-columned "folly" modeled on the Panama Pacific International Exposition. Approximately 2,500 employees and 1,500 vehicles will be accommodated at the complex.

Clear Channel Communications Inc. is scouting the Stone Oak area with plans for a new approximately 360,000-sf building to consolidate several of its San Antonio departments. This is in addition to the company's 50,000-sf headquarters in Lincoln Heights, occupied in May 2000. Construction of the new facility--to be built in phases--is anticipated in summer 2001.

PG&E National Energy Group's plan to relocate 650 employees from Bethesda to the Tower Oaks in Rockville has been put on hold due to Pacific Gas & Electric's energy problems in California. Although financed separately from Pacific Gas & Electric, PG&E National Energy Group's 450,000-sf project, which was planned for completion by late 2001, probably will not be completed until summer 2002 due to creditor hesitancy. When built, the complex could accommodate as many as 1,000 employees.