Schlumberger Leases 155,324-SF Office Building

HOUSTON-Schlumberger has renewed its lease for 155,324 square feet at Schlumberger Building in the Katy Freeway West submarket. The publicly-traded services company, which supplies technology, information solutions and integrated project management for the oil industry, has been a tenant in the class A office property since 1986.

Schlumberger has been the sole tenant in the building since 1999 and occupies roughly 15% of Parkway Properties’ Houston portfolio, according to Mike Fransen of Parkway Properties Inc., the building owner. The company’s Oil Field Services is the primary group that occupies the five-story property.

Fransen tells GlobeSt.com that lease negotiations began a year ago and ended with Schlumberger inking a 64-month lease. “The reality is that they want flexibility with the lease and to keep them in our building – a location they are happy with – the trade off is that we don’t get as much term as we’d like in a perfect world,” he notes, adding that Schlumberger received a tenant improvement allowance to modify its space.

As part of the lease renewal terms, Parkway Properties has addressed two building-specific issues that were important to Schlumberger: parking and road access. Fransen says the owner plans to enhance the parking to provide for increased density. Currently, the property offers 460 covered parking spaces. Moreover, Parkway Properties is working with the city of Houston to create a turnoff directly into the parking lot instead of the current one that requires a U-turn.

“We try to be good listeners, and during this downturn, we’ve tried to maintain, if not enhance our customer service,” Fransen says. “Sometimes these deals are less about [the rate] than addressing things that are important to the tenant. For Schlumberger, it was parking and access.”

Parkway Properties was represented internally by Lisa Skelton, while Schlumberger was represented by Studley’s Mark Russell.