Baker Hughes shrinks HQ with move to Houston’s Energy Corridor

Oilfield services giant Baker Hughes is cutting back office space by nearly two-thirds.

The Houston-based company will shutter four of its offices, including its current headquarters near George Bush Intercontinental Airport on the north end of town.

Next year, the company will decamp for a new office at Energy Center II, located at 575 Dairy Ashford Road in the “Energy Corridor,” on the Bayou City’s west end, where many domestic and international oil and gas companies have their North American headquarters.

Baker Hughes will occupy 130,000 square feet of office space with its new digs compared to the 346,000 square feet of office space it will dump through sales or leases to new occupants, according to a Houston Chronicle report.

Nearly 20 percent of Bakers Hughes Houston-based workforce, close to 1,400 employees, will be impacted by the move.

The move consolidates multiple corporate offices into one location where the company can invest in building out collaborative workspaces that reflect its hybrid workplace strategy, Baker Hughes chief human resources officer Deanna Jones, told the Chronicle.

The move could also be a harbinger of things to come for Houston’s oil and gas economy and encapsulates how the city’s office market is still in a state of flux from the fall out of the COVID pandemic, the rise of hybrid work arrangements and the so-called “flight to quality” in the city’s office market.