ChevronTexaco Corp. is buying a 40-story downtown Houston skyscraper that Enron Corp. built and was preparing to expand into before the energy trader collapsed into bankruptcy.
No purchase price was disclosed, although ChevronTexaco officials said Wednesday they expected to invest about $45 million in improvements. The deal was expected to be completed by mid-March.
The purchase of the vacant glass tower by San Francisco-based ChevronTexaco will bring to Houston about 500 jobs from the company's operations in California, New Orleans and Midland, Texas. The energy company also will consolidate and move into the new quarters people who now work in five of seven buildings ChevronTexaco already leases or owns in Houston.
The building primarily will house executives from the company's exploration and production operations along with some marketing people and would initially have about 3,700 people.
ChevronTexaco has about 53,000 employees worldwide.
In 2002, a private New York real estate company bought the 40-story glass tower for less than half the $240 million it cost to build the 1.2 million square foot structure, which once was intended to showcase Enron's high-flying trading operation.