page_title: Cullen Center
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Cullen Center / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Cullen Center: Continental Center II (right) and 500 Jefferson (left) - Continental Center II has the administrative headquarters of the Houston Fire Department Español: Cullen Center: Continental Center II (derecha) y 500 Jefferson (izquierda) - Continental Center II tiene la sede administrativa del Departamento de Bomberos de Houston
context_page_description: Cullen Center is a skyscraper complex in Downtown Houston, Texas, United States. The complex is now managed by Brookfield Properties. Previously Trizec Properties owned all four office buildings. The complex includes the headquarters of the Houston Fire Department and KBR, and it formerly included the headquarters of Continental Airlines.
  The buildings include 1600 Smith, 600 Jefferson, KBR Tower, and 500 Jefferson Street.
context_section_description: In 1959, the family of Hugh Roy Cullen, an oil businessperson and philanthropist who was recently deceased, announced that they would build a skyscraper complex in Downtown Houston. To the surprise of everyone the family planned for the 12 acres (4.9 ha), 5½ city block site to accommodate several sites. The first two buildings were to be a 500-room, 15-18 story hotel and a 25-story office building. Next, a 40-45 story office building was to be completed. Other buildings were planned to be added at later times. Gerald E. Veitmann, president of the Cullen Center, said that it was going to be "a memorium to Mr. and Mrs. Cullen, an investment in excess of 100 million dollars," and "to Houston what Rockefeller Center is to New York City." Work for clearing the land was scheduled to begin in December 1959. During the year, the family's plans also included another 25 story office building and a parking garage. Construction of the Cullen Center, which was planned to have around one dozen buildings, was scheduled to begin on October 1, 1960, with the first building being a 21-story office building with an attached parking garage.
  Welton Becket and Associates master planned the first two buildings, the 21 story, $12 million 500 Jefferson and the 12-story, $6 million Hotel America. Gerald E. Veltmann, the president of Cullen Center, Inc. said that the development "represents a marked departure from the traditional downtown scene and colors" because the development "centers around a planning concept with four separate levels structures: sub surface, used for parking and mechanical equipment; surface, used for vehicular traffic, parking, entrance lobbies, and service entrances, a second level, used for pedestrian-oriented facilities such as main lobbies, shops, displays, galleries, lounges, and restaurants; and the top space, into which will rise the main towers containing hotel rooms and offices." In other words, the building design separated the pedestrian and vehicular traffic from one another. The first levels were to have open plazas. The developer planned to establish air-conditioned bridges connecting the buildings at their second levels. The architect, Welton Becket of FAIA, said that the two original buildings were "esthetically related through the use of a common material—concrete—in a variety of forms—physically related by the second-level pedestrian bridges, and visually related around open plaza parking areas and a common exposed aggregate sidewalk roads."
  500 Jefferson opened in 1962. Continental Center II opened in 1974. The KBR Tower was built in 1973 and renovated in 1991. Continental Center I was completed in 1984.
  By 1987, the Canadian company Trizec Corporation bought debentures carrying an option to buy portions of the Cullen Center, including 1600 Smith Street.
  By 1991, the M. W. Kellogg company, which has already taken space at the M. W. Kellogg Tower formerly held by its parent company, leased an additional 250,000 square feet (23,000 m²) of space on 12 floors within one building in Cullen Center.
  By 1997, Trizec had convinced several Cullen Center tenants to move to the nearby Allen Center, which was also owned by Trizec. During that year Continental Airlines announced that it was moving its headquarters to the Cullen Center. Paul Layne, a vice president of the TrizecHahn Office division, said that the Continental move would raise the Cullen Center's occupancy rate from 81 percent in November 1996 to 94 percent.
  Tim Reylea, the vice president of Cushman Realty Corp., said that the Continental move "is probably the largest corporate relocation in the central business district of Houston ever." Bob Lanier, Mayor of Houston, said that he was "tickled to death" by the airline's move to relocate to Downtown Houston.
  In 2001, when Enron collapsed, it vacated 800,000 square feet (74,000 m²) of space in the Allen Center and Cullen Center complexes in Downtown Houston.
  In 2008, Continental signed five-year lease renewals for its Downtown Houston office space. In 2010, Continental Airlines and United Airlines announced
caption: 500 Jefferson (left) and 600 Jefferson (right)
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