Several Houston companies are making big office moves

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View in browser Get Unlimited Digital Access for 25¢! Support local, independent journalism. Subscribe Today. Photo: CBRE Making moves Two office moves are spelling major shakeups in the Houston area's commercial real estate space. Last week, chemicals giant LyondellBasell announced plans to move its U.S. headquarters from its namesake tower in the Galleria-area to a 64-story tower located at 2800 Post Oak. Lyondell will make the move by late 2024 or early 2025 as an effort to "step up company performance and culture." The change is believed to be the Houston region's largest office deal signed so far in 2023. A close runner-up is Irving-based Fluor, a construction and engineering company moving its Houston-area hub to the Energy Corridor after spending four decades in Sugar Land. The move will take over 1,300 employees out of the Sugar Land area as the company looks to hire nearly 600 more people. Fluor previously planned to build a 50-acre campus in Sugar Land, but sold the land last year while trying to shrink its footprint. According to the company, there were no options to stay in Sugar Land the provided the square footage it needed. Read more about Lyondell and Fluor from the Houston Chronicle's Marissa Luck and Katherine Feser.   Megan Munce Retail Reporter megan.munce@houstonchronicle.com Need to Know   • Houston small businesses say they could survive a recession. In a Bank of America national survey of small business owners, 250 of whom are in Houston, a majority said they are equipped to survive a recession. • Thousands of Houstonians turned out for a massive United Airlines job fair. It may have been the largest job fair in the Chicago-based airline's history, executives said, with some 8,000 people pre-registered to attend and quite a few walking in.  • A new 850-home community has broken ground in Conroe. Fast-growing Montgomery County is getting another new master-planned community in Conroe, where local real estate firm The Signorelli Company broke ground recently on an 850-home development. • Kroger has launched online SNAP payments in Houston. Houston and Dallas are the first cities in Texas where Kroger customers can use their SNAP benefits to make online pick up or delivery orders. Commentary   Carbon capture for food and health care. Carbon Free, based in San Antonio, has a patented process to convert CO2 emissions, writes columnist Chris Tomlinson.   Fuel Fix   Photo: Jerry Lara, San Antonio Express-News West Texas ranchers sued ERCOT over a wind farm with ties to a Chinese billionaire. Ranchers say the state's power grid operator violated a 2021 law when it failed to void an application to connect the wind farm project to the Texas grid.   • The Alaskan gambit: a $44 billion LNG project decades in the making. More than 800 miles from the closest ice-free port accessible to ships, the North Slope has no natural gas pipeline and thus no market for companies like Exxon Mobil and Conoco Phillips to sell their gas into. • Podcast: A Discovery Green tower highlights a new focus on climate. Skanska, a major real estate developer, is helping to push forward a new focus on embodied carbon emissions in construction with its 28-story office tower under construction near Discovery Green.     Get Unlimited Digital Access for 25¢ Support local, independent journalism. Act Now SALE ENDS MAY 15 | Cancel Anytime Unsubscribe  |  Manage Preferences  |  Privacy Notice Houston Chronicle 4747 Southwest Freeway, Houston, TX 77027 © 2023 Hearst Communications