Skanska Opens Downtown Houston Office Tower

Skanska has celebrated the grand opening of 1550 on the Green, its latest office tower in downtown Houston, after more than three years of development. The firm first acquired the land parcel for the project in October 2019 and broke ground on it in January 2021. The 28-story building topped out in February 2023.

The Bjarke Ingels Group-designed office building totals 375,000 square feet and includes sustainable features together with tenant-focused tech and amenities, such as a 7,000-square-foot fitness center, a 9,400-square-foot rooftop event space, bike storage and pedestrian zones with tree canopies. The property also encompasses 7,000 square feet of retail and direct access to the Lamar Bike Trail for its tenants. Michael Hsu designed the building’s interiors.

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Norton Rose Fulbright has already signed a lease to relocate to 1550 on the Green later this year and will be the building’s anchor tenant. The international law firm will occupy 32 percent of the tower’s office space across six floors.

The Class A office tower has already achieved LEED Platinum, WELL Platinum and WiredScore Platinum certifications, but the developer is targeting a Fitwel certification as well. Rising at 1550 Lamar St., the building is across the street from the Discovery Green park, near downtown Houston’s many retail and restaurant options, as well as major attractions like the Toyota Center, Minute Maid Park and the George R. Brown Convention Center.

Now complete, 1550 on the Green is the first component of Skanska’s three-block mixed-use project dubbed Discovery West. The developer, along with BIG, put together the 3.5-acre master plan in early 2020; the development is set to include three neighboring properties along with restaurants, retail and green space.

A long history of Houston projects

Prior to 1550 on the Green, Skanska had extensive experience in the Houston market with both restoring local landmarks and pursuing new developments. The firm’s portfolio in the metro totals 1.8 million square feet of Class A office space, including 3009 Post Oak Blvd., a 20-story Class A building that came online in 2013.

In 2022, Skanska sold West Memorial Place, a two-building, 715,000-square-foot office campus also in Houston, to a joint venture led by Fuller Realty. The developer had completed the two phases of the project in 2015 and 2016.

Skanska was also the developer of Houston’s Bank of America Tower, the first LEED v4 Platinum Core & Shell project in the U.S. The 35-story, 775,000-square-foot office building changed hands in 2019.