Paul Frazier, vice president of leasing for Chicago-based Trizec Properties Inc., tells GlobeSt.com that the lease has been set up to expire with the rest of the space in January 2012. He says Devon started out four years ago with 56,000 sf on two floors in the 36-story building, but a series of mergers and acquisitions drove repeated expansions in the 996,000-sf tower, now 90% leased. The building's quoted rate is $23 per sf.

Frazier says Devon also occupies 168,000 sf in Three Allen Center as a result of last summer's merger with Ocean Energy. Labeling it as "temporary space," he says the lease expires at the end of this year.

Houston, like Calgary, Alberta, is a division office for the Oklahoma City-based independent energy company, which employs 4,000 worldwide. A Top 10 operator in the Gulf of Mexico, Devon is the largest US-based independent oil and gas producer. Kevin Snodgrass and Tim Relyea, both with Cushman & Wakefield of Texas Inc. in Houston, represented Devon Energy.