As much effort as has been expended to explain the San Francisco workplace revolution, Silicon Valley workspace is in a jumble, too. Five of the valley’s most important companies have announced large, expensive new campuses. On their face, the decisions—by Apple, Google, Facebook, Nvidia and Samsung—make two statements: Companies don’t expect to abandon Silicon Valley, but the existing workstock does not meet corporate needs. Silicon Valley with its historic startup and hardware-engineering business culture has specialized in the vanilla office and workplace building. For landlords, the … [Read more...]

An 11.6-acre site on the east side of San Jose’s popping Santana Row shopping center is being brought to market for the first time in more than 40 years. The Winchester family, which also owns the Winchester Mystery House next door, is offering the site unpriced as a redevelopment opportunity under a 50-year ground lease. Three of the signature, mushroom-capped movie houses owned and operated by Century Theatres throughout Silicon Valley and a sea of surface parking currently occupy the site. The property is zoned for immediate development of 500,000 square feet of offices and retail space … [Read more...]

New York City-based Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management, formerly known as RREEF Real Estate, expects to achieve an initial yield of 6 percent on the 431,490 square-foot Oakmead West buildings in Sunnyvale that it has acquired from Equity Office. Deutsche Asset paid $275.7 a square foot in an all-cash transaction, according to industry sources with first-person knowledge of the exchange. The acquisition is one of three that the real estate manager has made on behalf of three institutional investors for $266 million total. The other two properties are an 89,074-square-foot … [Read more...]

The office vacancy rate fell only slightly during the first quarter, as a lack of significant job growth continued to impede demand for space, according to a quarterly report released on Tuesday. At the same time, U.S. office construction during the first quarter reached a 14-year low as developers remain spooked by soft demand and meager rent growth, according to real estate research firm Reis Inc. Persistent lackluster U.S. job growth was behind the 0.1 percentage point U.S. office vacancy rate decline. Demand for office space hinges on hiring workers to fill it. Although hiring in … [Read more...]

San Jose’s City Council has approved a trio of agreements with Samsung Semiconductor Inc. to build a 680,000-square-foot research and development campus and new North American headquarters in North San Jose. The project is expected to involve a capital investment of no less than $200 million, assuming an estimated per square foot construction cost of about $300 and excluding the value of business equipment required to outfit the facility. The campus, which is proposed to include two, 10-story towers, is expected to house 2,000 workers. Samsung has an existing 300,000-square-foot complex … [Read more...]