Opened in 1983, the Williams Tower at 2800 Post Oak Boulevard in Uptown is a 64-story skyscraper. Soaring up to 909 feet in the sky, the tower is the city’s tallest building outside the downtown area. Earlier this week, the tower sold to its namesake tenant, The Williams Companies.
The Williams Tower history
The major office tower originally opened under the name “Transco Tower” – after its first landmark tenant. Under the legendary Houston real estate development firm founded by Gerald D. Hines, the postmodern office tower was designed by New York-based Burgee Architects with Philip Johnson and the Houston-based Morris-Aubry Architects. At the time of its opening, it was the tallest skyscraper west of the Mississippi River.
Today, the tower is one of the most recognizable features in the Houston skyline. Once called “Skyscraper of the Century” by Texas Monthly, the Williams Tower is the tallest building in Houston outside of the downtown area.
Standing adjacent to Houston’s iconic Waterwall installation, the tower connects to Galleria Houston by way of skybridge. Major tenants include Williams Companies, along with Hines, Rowan Companies, Quanta services, CBRE, and Ecopetrol America.
Williams Tower ownership from 1994 – 2026
Oklahoma-based energy company Williams Companies merged with Transco Energy in 1995. In 1999, the building was renamed “Williams Tower”. Until 2008, the building itself was under the ownership of Kuwaiti Investors (Fosterlane Management) before the Hines-affiliated Hines Real Estate Investment Trust purchased the property. In 2013, the Dallas-based Invesco Real Estate purchased the tower for $412 million.
The Williams Tower 2026 sale
On July 20, 2026, The Williams Companies purchased the tower from Williams Tower LP – the property holding/selling entity tied to Invesco Real Estate – for over $300 million. The sale included the 1.4-million-square-foot office tower and parking garage. According to Green Street News, the sale amounts to one of the city’s largest since 2019.
