Oil company moving downtown

[SpectralMourning]

adaniel brings up some good points that I've always pondered myself. We saw what hurricane Katrina can do to the oil industry. That storm could of easily have hit Houston. In today's day and age in a very volatile market, why in the heck would the world's major oil companies want to sit in a hotbed for disaster. Like adaniel said, one major hurricane could wipe them out for quite awhile, thus causing oil prices to skyrocket much more than hurricane Katrina levels. Move to OKC where we are more inland and safer, not to mention quality of life and cost of living.

Move 'em to Tulsa or something instead. Let's become the heart of a more stable industry this time around.

[Oil Capital]

I think I'll chime in since I'm an OU student interning for an oil company in Houston right now...

It really isn't big time. It just had the advantage of being home to the early wheelers and dealers of the oil and gas industry. As time progressed a lot of the companies wanted to be near each other so that they could pool that knowledge with each other. This took on a whole new importance when the bottom fell out in the 80's, and being in Houston was a matter of survival. So today, alot of these companies, even those based out of OKC or Denver, have old, big wig Texas oilmen who can't fathom being anywhere besides Houston. The same thing happened in my hometown of Plano TX. Both Fina and ARCO were out of there, and they both moved to Houston in the late 1990's during that slump. And Plano didn't have a Devon or Chesapeake or Sandridge to rise and take their places.

Personally, I love the company I work for but I hate Houston. Traffic sucks, weather sucks, drivers are rude, basically this place has no good reason to exist. It sits on the Gulf Coast waiting for a hurricane to take it out of its misery. But as far as the oil industry goes, it is the undisputed capital of it. So if all OKC needs to do is give out free parking to keep the oil companies it has, than so be it. Considering a city of its size, for OKC to hold on to what it has in terms of an oil industry is laudable considering that Dallas Denver, and Tulsa couldn't do the same. Who knows? Maybe I can stay in OKC and avoid this place.

How sad.

[metro]

Move 'em to Tulsa or something instead. Let's become the heart of a more stable industry this time around.

Why should OKC move them to Tulsa, why not move them to OKC. I think that was the purpose of this thread, talking about if OKC should use incentives to lure or retain oil companies here, in OKC. Also if anything, OKC makes more sense, we're a more central location nationally and regionally, better economy, and we have just as skilled or maybe more skilled workforce for this industry. Look at all the major players in the state (with the exception of Williams) are in OKC.

[SpectralMourning]

Oh I was just being silly, really.

[BDP]

Let's become the heart of a more stable industry this time around.

Let's become the heart of more than one industry. That's the only way you can achieve stability.

[Midtowner]

Why should OKC move them to Tulsa, why not move them to OKC. I think that was the purpose of this thread, talking about if OKC should use incentives to lure or retain oil companies here, in OKC. Also if anything, OKC makes more sense, we're a more central location nationally and regionally, better economy, and we have just as skilled or maybe more skilled workforce for this industry. Look at all the major players in the state (with the exception of Williams) are in OKC.

We also have a decent airport.

[Turanacus]

Growth in Energy Sector
Fills Office Vacancies
By MAURA WEBBER -- Wall Street Journal
January 9, 2008; Page B4

More Oklahoma office building landlords are smiling these days even as commercial property owners in many other U.S. markets are jittery over the possibility of a recession.

What a difference $100-a-barrel oil makes.

Oklahoma City's booming energy sector is driving down vacancies and pushing up rents, just like it is in that bigger energy capital of Houston. Rents also are rising in retail, warehouses and other sectors of the economy of the metropolitan area, which is home to about 1.2 million people. There is even the possibility of Oklahoma City landing a professional basketball team.

SandRidge Energy is moving its headquarters to a tower that was formerly home to Kerr-McGee.

In one major expansion by an energy business, SandRidge Energy Inc. is moving its headquarters into much of the space in a 500,000-square-foot tower in downtown Oklahoma City that was formerly the headquarters of the Kerr-McGee Corp. SandRidge, an oil and natural gas company, purchased the tower and some other property for $25 million and is currently renovating the tower. The company already occupies some space in the building and will move more people from about 75,000 square feet of leased space in another area of the city by the end of the year, says Dirk M. Van Doren, the company's chief financial officer. Its Oklahoma City staff has swelled from about three people in mid-2006 to about 350 today.

Other energy companies are making similar moves. Quest Resource Corp., an oil and natural gas exploration and production company, late last year relocated its headquarters to about 36,000 square feet in the Oklahoma Tower downtown from about 10,000 square feet in the northwest section of the city.

Growth in the energy sector has helped push Oklahoma City region's office vacancies down in recent years to 16.3% in the third quarter from mid 2004 when about one-fifth of the region's office space was empty, according to Property & Portfolio Research Inc., a Boston-based research firm. Even Oklahoma City's central business district, which struggles with vacancies in older buildings, has seen office vacancies drop to 28.6% from more than 30% in 2004.
BY THE NUMBERS

Third Quarter
Oklahoma City Metro 2007 2006
Office vacancy 16.3% 17%
Avg. rent/s.f. $14.74 $14.33
Warehouse vacancy 10.9% 12.1%
Avg. rent/s.f. $4.03 $3.93
Retail econ. vacancy 11.5% 10.3%
Avg. monthly rent $12.64 $12.30
Median home price $130,000 $127,000
Source: Property & Portfolio Research Inc.; Nat. Assn. of Realtors

Jobs in the area's natural resources and mining sector, which includes oil and natural-gas-related industries, rose about 55% to 14,700 in November from 9,500 the same month in 2004, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The annual rate of the growth of the area's energy sector is expected to slip somewhat in 2007 to 9% from about 22% in 2006, according to Mark Snead, director of the Center for Applied Economic Research at Oklahoma State University.

Nearly all sectors of the area's real estate market have benefited from the energy upswing. But most property classes are priced low compared with the rest of the country. While the median single-family home prices in the U.S. declined 2% in the third quarter from the year-earlier period to $220,800, median prices in the Oklahoma City area rose 2.4% to $130,000, according to the National Association of Realtors. The area's office, retail, warehouse and apartment rents are all rising although they remain well below the average of the 54 major markets surveyed by PPR.

Mayor Mick Cornett is also hoping downtown will get a boost if Oklahoma City is successful in attracting an NBA-team to play permanently in its Ford Center. The arena, built in 2002, temporarily hosted the New Orleans Hornets after Hurricane Katrina.

Last week, the city council voted to ask the public to vote in March on whether to raise as much as $121.6 million through a one-cent sales tax to pay for improvements to the Ford Center. Despite some recent success at downtown revitalization, the city still is associated by many with the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building. "We need to be branded with something positive," Mr. Cornett says.

[HOT ROD]

^ very nice article.

[metro]

wow, i re-read it. Didn't realize it was in the Wall Street Journal, I thought it was Journal Record. What a big difference and a great article!

[CuatrodeMayo]

Makes us sound like the Promised Land.

[Kerry]

Can anyone guess how much a 1/4 page advertisment cost in the Wall Street Journal? A lot more than the $100,000 worth of parking that kept one of these Energy companies in OKC.