Tall & Urban News

The 41-story office tower located at 5555 San Felipe Street in Houston’s Uptown area is changing hands once again. Miami Beach-based Starwood Property Trust has sold the 1.2 million square foot (111,480 square meter) building to Energy Transfer, a Dallas-based energy infrastructure firm.

The transaction was confirmed by a special warranty deed filed with Harris County on 8 April, naming 5555 San Felipe LLC (an entity linked to Energy Transfer) as the buyer. 

Originally constructed in 1983 as the headquarters for Marathon Oil Corp., the tower underwent a US$15 million renovation in 2022 led by M-M Properties. Updates included three full floors of new amenity space, a redesigned lobby with a coffee bar, lounge, media wall, and art installations. The Houston-based firm had purchased the property in 2018 for US$175 million in a joint venture with Boston’s Baupost Group.

Following a mortgage default in 2022, Starwood took over the building from M-M Properties. During Starwood’s second-quarter earnings call that year, the firm’s leadership considered repurposing the building into residential, but ultimately retained it as office space.

Throughout the life of the building, it had been largely occupied by Marathon Oil until the company relocated in 2021 to its 440,000 square foot (40,880 square meter) headquarters called CityCentre. Marathon had once held more than 60 percent of the lease in the building.

While the West Loop/Galleria submarket where the high-rise is located faces an office vacancy rate of 27.7 percent—above the Houston-wide average of 24.2 percent—it also recorded the highest leasing activity in the region during the first quarter of 2025, with 339,186 square feet (31,500 square meters) according to CBRE. Overall, the Houston market has experienced a negative absorption of 231,861 square feet (21,540 square meters) of office space in the same period.

Learn more at Houston Business Journal