The Situation
A growing company owned its Houston headquarters — approximately 100,000 rentable square feet in a location that had served them well historically but was increasingly misaligned with where the talent market had moved. The building was dated, the location was unfavorable for recruiting younger employees, and the pandemic had created a rare window of tenant-favorable economics in Houston that made a move not just logical but financially compelling.
Owned buildings create a particular set of psychological and financial anchors that make right-sizing conversations difficult. Leadership needed objective, data-driven evidence that a smaller, better-located leased space would outperform the status quo — not just on rent economics, but on talent outcomes, operational efficiency, and organizational culture. The space program needed to be credible enough to move the board.
The Approach
Through employee surveys and structured departmental interviews, we developed a granular understanding of how each team worked — their office attendance expectations, collaboration patterns, space preferences, and growth trajectories. Executive visioning sessions surfaced the guiding principles and drivers for change that would inform every subsequent decision.
We then produced a comprehensive space program that specified workstation sizes, office counts, collaboration ratios, departmental adjacency requirements, and total space needed — validated against multiple headcount growth scenarios. The deliverable gave leadership not just a recommendation but a model they could stress-test against their own assumptions.
Entering the market with a precise, data-backed brief eliminates weeks of scope ambiguity and puts every landlord conversation on the same footing from day one.