A development more than 10 years in the making, Black Forest Venture's Technology Park is scheduled for completion this year. The final building—an 84,800-square-foot, Class A office at 2829 Technology Forest Blvd.—recently broke ground and should be finished by the third quarter of this year.

"It's exciting," said Haydar Kustu, director of marketing for Black Forest Ventures. "With this, we are going to run out of space, but we still have over 20 acres of undeveloped land in The Woodlands Town Center."

Kustu said the land was cleared for the four-story building about eight months ago and pre-leasing has begun. He anticipates similar tenants to the other nine Black Forest Ventures buildings within the technology park. Other tenants include oil and gas companies such as RPC, Clariant Oil and Mining, and TriEagle Energy, as well as medical technology companies, including the Bruker Corporation and MolecularHealth, which recently relocated.

"We have some oil and gas-related energy companies in our office park, but we also have some non-energy companies occupying our buildings," he said. "So it's a good mix. It's not just the energy companies occupying it, and that's probably going to carry over to our new building."

The cleared land for the new building—adjacent to The Woodlands Township offices—also features a pad site for a restaurant. Although the site has been leased, Kustu said he could not reveal the restaurant as of press time.

"It's going to be an amenity to that building, as well as the surrounding buildings, as an on-site restaurant," he said.

Kustu said the office park first broke ground 10 years ago, but he has not been surprised by how quickly it has developed.

"I think a lot of people knew this was coming," he said. "People think that eventually there will be alternative technology to energy problems, but these energy companies will still solve these problems. So there's a big demand for oil and gas business. They're not going anywhere."

Black Forest Ventures owns hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space in The Woodlands, including the Black Forest Tower at 24 Waterway Ave., as well as Hubbell & Hudson and Black Walnut Cafe. It recently opened the new Galaxy FBO in Conroe at the Lone Star Executive Airport.

The company owns 20 acres of undeveloped land in The Woodlands, Kustu said, including 10 acres near the Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital and land behind the Hubbell & Hudson Kitchen on Research Forest Drive. With Hubbell & Hudson closing its market in March, Black Forest Ventures could expand the Bistro on Waterway Avenue.

Gil Staley, CEO of The Woodlands Area Economic Development Partnership, said another 100,000-square-foot building is being developed just across from the proposed Black Forest Ventures site by The Woodlands Development Company. With Research Forest Lakeside's nearby development underway, Staley said the area is one of the most sought-after locations for new commercial development in the region.

"[Black Forest Ventures] put together such a quality product for that area," Staley said. "They are keeping with technology, [research and development] type facilities, and it's been successful to say the least. In completing that, it will very much go with the synergy that's being completed in the entire area."