The Calpine Center is a 453 ft (138m) tall postmodern skyscraper in Downtown

Downtown Houston

Downtown Houston is the largest business district of Houston, Texas, United States. Downtown Houston, the city's central business district, contains the headquarters of many prominent companies. There is an extensive network of pedestrian tunnels and skywalks connecting the buildings of the district...

 Houston, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

. The building has 33 floors of Class A office space. It is the 30th tallest building in the city. The building has the world headquarters of Calpine Corporation. Hines and Prime Asset Management jointly developed the building. Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum's Houston office designed the building, and Turner Construction acted as the general contractor. It is connected to the downtown tunnel system. Mark Russell of Studley, a real estate firm, said that the Calpine Center is more efficient than many of the tall office buildings built in Houston in the early 1980s.

History

Originally Calpine intended to lease 300000 square foot of space. By February 2003 Calpine announced that it would sublease some of the space to other firms. The Calpine Center was scheduled for completion at the end of 2003. In July 2003 the space was 82% booked for occupation. Calpine and Burlington Resources, another energy company, leased space in the building; each company agreed to lease 250000 square foot of space. In addition Jones Day agreed to lease over 50000 square foot. The building opened on Monday November 10, 2003. Other tenants that had occupied the building by its opening included Cheniere Energy Inc. and Hines's southwest region development office. In 2004 Avalon Advisors LP agreed to lease 9385 square foot of space in the building, bringing its occupancy level to 86%.

External links

• Emporis
• Skyscraperpage