New Year, New Home: Pioneer Natural Resources Settles Into High-Tech Hidden Ridge

Oil and gas exploration company Pioneer Natural Resources relocated its headquarters late last year within Irving to the new Hidden Ridge development, the 150-acre mixed-used project being built in partnership with real estate development firm KDC.

Bill Hannes

On land that once was the old Carpenter Ranch, the Pioneer Resources building is a state-of-the-art, high-tech, 5G-enabled development that will give Pioneer its own building from which to operate. It has numerous amenities and was designed with its employees in mind and to meet Pioneer’s unique needs, the company says.

In December, the 10-story, 1.1-million-square-foot building that Pioneer leases was sold by the partnership for $584.2 million to the Washington, D.C.-based real estate investment firm PRP, which partnered with capital investors in Saudi Arabia and New York. Pioneer finished its move-in on Dec. 9, the company said. Bill Hannes, senior vice president of special projects at Pioneer, took time to detail the move and how it will help the company grow into the future.

Hidden Ridge will be a technologically advanced development. How will 5G capability and other tech innovations at Hidden Ridge help Pioneer?

The state-of-the-art facility is designed to enhance our innovation and efficiency through technology centers designated for our drilling, completions and operations teams. The remote operating hubs enrich collaboration between field operations, engineering and geoscience teams to promote continuous improvement through real-time data visualization and analysis.

Pioneer has a long history of success in the oil and gas sector. How will your new campus help you innovate in your industry?

The new headquarters provides an inspiring work environment for employees to continue developing the best practices and innovations in the business. We believe leveraging our current employee work force and attracting new talent will keep us at the forefront of our industry.

What first attracted Pioneer Natural Resources to Hidden Ridge as the new home for the company?

We were first attracted to the location because of its close proximity to our current building, which provided minimal disruption to employees’ commute to work. The site is also a beautiful piece of property and was the location of the old Carpenter Ranch. The building is centered over the original ranch headquarters, and it sits on a ridge, which is one of the highest points in Irving allowing for spectacular views. Also, in designing the building, we tried to leverage the natural beauty of the site, leaving much of the original vegetation intact.

How will Hidden Ridge meet the needs of Pioneer Natural Resources as a place to grow its business?

Our new Pioneer headquarters was designed with our employees in mind. The goal was to create an efficient and technologically advanced workspace that caters to the needs of our employees and inspires them to be innovative. The new headquarters offers individual offices but has many collaborative workspaces throughout the building. Many amenities have been designed for our employees including a fitness center, medical clinic, daycare, cafeteria, wellness rooms, walking trail, and basketball and sports court. The building was not only built for our current employees to perform their work in a great environment, but also will be a key piece to attract and retain future employees.

How does being located at Hidden Ridge benefit your employees?

The new location gave us the opportunity to work in a newly constructed, single-tenant building. As a result, we were able to design and build it solely to suit Pioneer’s needs. Also, since we are leasing the building, we did not have to invest any of our own capital in the building.

Pioneer is seeking LEED Silver Certification. Why are green building strategies important for your new home?

Actually, we feel confident that we will achieve LEED Gold certification. For many years, Pioneer has been an advocate of environmental sustainability, not only in our words, but in our actions. We actively promote environmental stewardship, encouraging Pioneer employees to continue improving their environmental focus and empowering them to do the right thing each and every day. We wanted to ensure our new building was built in a manner that prioritized stewardship and reflected a company core value: no job is so important that it cannot be done in a safe and environmentally sound manner.

A version of this article originally published in the Fall 2019 edition of the Dallas-Fort Worth Real Estate Review.

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