Chevron Downsizes California HQ While Upsizing Texas Presence With New 77-Acre R&D Facility

Development firm Howard Hughes Holdings Inc. announced Chevron Corp. purchased 77 acres in its new Bridgeland community in Cypress, Texas, to build a new research and development campus. The purchase comes as Chevron expands corporate offices in Texas. 

“Chevron’s acquisition marks a pivotal moment for Bridgeland as the community enters its next phase of development as a leading job center for the region,” said Jim Carman, President of the Houston Region for Howard Hughes. 

Carman continued, “One of the top-selling communities in the country, Bridgeland is poised to benefit from the influx of businesses and their employees seeking to live and work in a centralized location that offers commercial opportunities as well as single-family and multifamily housing options to meet growing demand.”

Chevron has expanded operations in Texas in recent years due to the shale boom in the Permian Basin, which now makes up 25% of the company’s total global output. Bloomberg noted the oil company recently announced plans to downsize its headquarters in the San Francisco Bay area and allowed employees to move to Houston, where 7,000 employees and contractors work out of a downtown office tower. 

“The potential research-and-development facility would provide office and laboratory research space to enable new capabilities and provide flexibility for future activities,” Chevron told Bloomberg in a statement. 

“Chevron is attracted to the opportunities Bridgeland has to offer and views this acquisition as a strong addition to our asset portfolio,” said Daniel Abate, Head of Corporate Real Estate for Chevron. 

Abate said, “We take pride in contributing to the communities where we live and work and are excited about the potential of establishing a research and development campus in Bridgeland to advance our work toward achieving a lower carbon energy future.”

The oil giant’s downsizing of California headquarters with upsizing in Texas is yet another sign the exodus out of the crime-ridden progressive state continues. 

Some of the largest companies that have abandoned high crime and high-taxed states for Texas in recent years include: 

• NRG Energy – moved from Princeton, New Jersey, to Houston

• Tesla – moved from Palo Alto, California, to Austin

• Hewlett Packard Enterprise – moved from San Jose, California, to Spring

• Oracle – moved from Redwood City, California, to Austin

• Charles Schwab – moved from San Francisco, California, to Westlake

• Caterpillar – moved from Deerfield, Illinois, to Irving

• AECOM – moved from Los Angeles, California, to Dallas

• CBRE – moved from Los Angeles, California, to Dallas

The list of companies relocating to Texas continues to expand. And this trend might last a decade, according to hedge fund manager Kyle Bass.