By: Zach Markovic w/PlanoStar
What was old is new again, and that makes for good business in Plano.
Denbury Resources Inc.’s renovation of its corporate headquarters at the Campus at Legacy has been completed. The company celebrated with a ribbon- cutting Thursday evening of the newly renovated Building 3 that used to be a part of the EDS compound. The new space will provide 375,000 square feet of office space for the company and was the single largest lease transaction in the DFW area during 2010.
While the company executives are happy to call Plano home, they could have easily gone elsewhere after Denbury’s rapid growth following the $4.5 billion acquisition of Fort Worth-based Encore Acquisition Company.
“We did not have enough space after the Encore acquisition,” said Phil Rykhoek, chief executive officer of Denbury. “We did not have the space to fit the 200 people from the Fort Worth company into our Tennyson offices.”
Knowing company-wide communication was key, the company did not want the employees spread out across multiple buildings. Wanting the best fit for its company culture, Denbury began looking around for something that would fall in line with its vision.
Many locations would have worked, and Rykhoek said they had to do a bit of hard negotiating to stay competitive with site location. With cities like Frisco to the north aggressively growing their business sector, it would not be the first time Plano lost a company to the growing city. The city of Plano stepped in and gave the company the financial incentives to stay in the area. That led Denbury to look at an abandoned EDS building.
In March 2010, the company initially leased 325,000 square feet of office space at the Campus at Legacy to accommodate the growth. The company would use 275,000 square feet of the space immediately and 50,000 square feet by early 2013.
“We were open to locating to the best place for us,” said Whitney Shelley, vice president of human resources for Denbury. “So it worked out wonderfully for us to be able to stay here with the connections our employees have made in the area.”
Soon after, the company leased an additional 50,000 square feet for immediate use, making Denbury the sole tenant of one of three clusters of buildings within the Campus at Legacy owned by KDC Real Estate Development & Investments. The renovation and design of the interior space was completed in time for Denbury employees to report to work in their new corporate headquarters on Jan. 3, following the New Year holiday. The additional 50,000 square feet will be utilized in the second phase of renovations and will be ready for occupancy around the middle of March.
Denbury’s executives knew they needed to be in the new space as soon as possible, so they laid out an 11-month project to renovate the third building that used to be a part of EDS. Architecture firm Gensler was hired on to design the project. It focused on the goal of building a community within the company. A campus feel and open areas for co-workers to gather were among the many ideas Gensler took from Denbury’s requests.
“The design really provides amenities and areas to support their work,” said Paul Manno, design director for Gensler. “I believe Denbury chose a great time to make a change in their environment.”
Soon after the designs were complete, the work to renovate a long-vacant building began. That was left up to Structure Tone Southwest Inc.
“What a great story for this project,” said Dan Busch, president of Structure Tone Southwest Inc. “This building was vacant for many years and used very hard before that. For Denbury to come in with a vision and renovate the building in such a way to create a new space was a very unique aspect of the project.”
The project incorporates features like an on-site gourmet café, a state-of-the-art training facility, a courtyard with a fountain, an on-campus gym, spacious covered parking and an office for each and every employee.
“The new facility is now home to over 500 employees and growing,” Rykhoek said.
Creating a new business home for residents of Plano is one of the main goals of the city. City Councilman Ben Harris said having businesses like Denbury stay in Plano shows how companies feel about the city.
“This proves yet again that the city of Plano is the premier place to do business in North Texas,” Harris said.
Echoing that sentiment, Mayor Phil Dyer said quality businesses in the area only attract more companies.
“You look at the neighbors around here, whether it is EnCana, Pizza Hut’s new world headquarters, Frito Lay or JCPenney,” Dyer said. “These are all world-class companies that came here for a reason, and [Denbury is] a spectacular addition to this neighborhood.”
Denbury is an independent oil- and natural- gas company. The company is the largest oil and natural gas producer in both Mississippi and Montana, owns the largest reserves of CO2 used for tertiary oil recovery east of the Mississippi River and holds significant operating acreage in the Rocky Mountain and Gulf Coast regions. The company’s goal is to increase the value of acquired properties through a combination of exploitation, drilling and proven engineering extraction practices, with its most significant emphasis relating to tertiary recovery operations.
