Norton Rose Fulbright offices at Norton Rose Fulbright Tower in Houston, TX. Courtesy photo

Norton Rose Fulbright has moved its Houston office into a new space featuring a private outside terrace overlooking the 12-acre Discovery Green park in the city's downtown, and views of that urban park through floor-to-ceiling windows from many areas of the firm. The firm's Houston office is in 118,000 square feet on six floors of a newly constructed building known as Norton Rose Fulbright Tower. The 28-story building, which was built with a focus on sustainability, is located in an area of downtown Houston near Discovery Green, the George R. Brown Convention Center, and the Toyota Center, where the NBA's Houston Rockets play. The new office features high-tech conference rooms, and single-size glass-walled offices for the approximately 200 lawyers working in Houston, plus room for growth. An internal staircase links two floors containing conference rooms including one named after the late Leon Jaworski, the Watergate prosecutor who was a name partner of Houston-founded Fulbright & Jaworski, which merged with U.K. firm Norton Rose in 2013. The Norton Rose Fulbright lawyers and staff moved into the new office space in June, but the firm announced the move on Thursday. Kevin O'Gorman, the partner-in-charge of the Houston office, said the new space is more efficient than the firm's previous office space in a building a few blocks away where the firm had been located for nearly 40 years. Also, O'Gorman said, the new space helps the firm focus on providing health and wellness benefits for employees, including a fitness center in the building, an advanced air filtration system, and an abundance of natural light from the floor-to-ceiling windows. Plans for the move began five years ago, O'Gorman said, as the firm reviewed space available in the market in downtown Houston. The firm opted to sign a lease for the new building, initially known as 1550 on the Green, because of its planned amenities and proximity to Discovery Green. The building is located in an area of downtown that is "on the upswing," O'Gorman said. Norton Rose Fulbright is the anchor tenant in the building, which was designed by Bjarke Ingels Group. Construction took nearly three years and was completed in February. Skanska, a development and construction firm, handled the construction project, and Houston's Rottet Studio was the architecture and interior design firm.