Eleventh-Hour Payoff Spares Downtown Houston’s Exxon Tower

A historic piece of Houston’s skyline has dodged the auction block — at least for now.

The owner of the long-vacant Exxon-Mobil tower at 800 Bell Street wired more than $16 million in a last-minute payoff that halted a Dec. 2 foreclosure sale, resetting the clock on a troubled saga that’s dragged through loan disputes, bankruptcy filings and a stalled redevelopment plan, the Houston Chronicle reported. The reprieve doesn’t solve the tower’s structural and financial headaches, but it keeps a potential $35 million sale on the table, according to court records.

Chicago-based Sugar Pine Development has been circling the 45-story property and was expected to close on a deal by Dec. 5, though as of earlier this week it hadn’t filed anything signaling it had backed away. The firm has begun assembling a redevelopment team, the filings show.

The 1.2 million-square-foot building — once the headquarters of Humble Oil, a predecessor to ExxonMobil — has been vacant since Exxon left for its Spring campus in 2015.

The tower’s owner, Bell Business Investments — an affiliate of New York’s CMI Developers — is keeping its options open. A principal for the firm, Isaac Jacobowitz, told the outlet that they will either form the right team to revitalize the building or sell for a reasonable price. Asked whether a sale to Sugar Pine was imminent, he said both that deal and another buyer remain possible.

The legal fallout traces back to Bell Business’ failed attempt to convert the 1960s-era office tower into a residential-heavy mixed-use complex. Its original lender sold the loan to an entity called 800 Bell Holdings, which declared a default in July and pushed for foreclosure this fall. Bell Business fought the claims, filing for bankruptcy in October to stall the sale, then withdrawing the case weeks later to pursue a transaction. When the sale didn’t materialize, 800 Bell Holdings took another run at foreclosure.

The payoff — funded through a $13 million refinancing from Broadview Capital that matures in January 2027 — gives Bell Business roughly a year to land a buyer or revive a redevelopment plan. But the building’s condition remains a major hurdle. Court filings describe water damage, broken windows, moldy drywall and moisture intrusion. A Harris County judge granted the lender access to perform emergency repairs, and its attorney said 40 workers completed roughly $380,000 worth of fixes. Questions about asbestos remediation linger, according to the journal.

Downtown Houston’s cadre of aging megatowers has proven tough to reposition even with interest from opportunistic buyers, and the Exxon-Mobil building is no exception.

— Eric Weilbacher