New KBR Office Campus Coming to Katy

KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown and Root) is a global engineering, construction and services company supporting the energy, petrochemicals, government services and civil infrastructure sectors. The company serves many markets, particularly gas monetization, having designed and constructed, alone or with joint venture partners, more than half of the world’s operating liquefied natural gas production capacity over the past 30 years. Now, after almost a year and a half of careful planning by the Katy Economic Development Counsel, KBR has announced it’s new massive campus facility off 1-10 and Grand Parkway in Katy.

KBR has signed an earnest money agreement and intends to enter into a long-term lease for the new facility, which is expected to be just over 900,000 square feet. The size should rival other large office campuses like Conoco Phillips or Shell. The Katy campus is set to break ground in late 2008 and will near completion in 2010. The campus buildings will be LEED certified, a green building standard (stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design by the U.S. Green Building Council)… so it will be energy efficient and should have less impact and use more renewable resources in it’s construction than standard non-LEED certified buildings.

The Katy Economic Development Council has been working with the Staubach company (a real estate construction consulting firm) hammering out the details. The Katy EDC press release states:

“We are certainly pleased and excited that KBR has selected Katy for its new West Houston Campus. This project will have a strong economic and corporate impact on the Katy Area for many years to come. Katy Area EDC worked on the project with The Staubach Company Team for about a year and a half to facilitate the location in the Katy Area,” noted Lance LaCour, President and CEO of the Katy Area Economic Development Council “It was a long intensive process. We provided technical assistance with infrastructure related issues and developed and packaged an incentive program that was creative and competitive. The incentives proposal included reimbursements from the Municipal Utility District for infrastructure, grants from the Katy Area EDC Opportunity Fund, applications for training programs, local workforce recruiting assistance, electricity efficiency incentives, permitting assistance, use of certain facilities for training and Company events; goodwill incentives and discounts from local private vendors, and other support for employees relocating for the project.”

A large number of sites in West Houston were considered for the project. ” We believe our proximity to the Energy Corridor, our phenomenally deep and world class talent pool, large available sites, and our ability as Community to show our strong sense of cooperation and partnership helped us come out on top in the site selection process,” noted LaCour. - KatyEDC.org

Some sources say it will bring an additional 4,500+ jobs to the Katy area, which will boost it’s economy tremendously. KBR will also continue to maintain it’s corporate office and operations in downtown Houston.