A joint venture between Harvest Properties, Inc., a full service commercial real estate investment, development and management firm, and its longtime partner Invesco Real Estate, a global real estate investment manager, recently acquired a three-building class “A” office development site in the heart of Sunnyvale, one of Silicon Valley’s most active submarkets.
The fully-entitled, shovel-ready development is located minutes from Downtown Sunnyvale, in the desirable Peery Park neighborhood. It is less than one mile to Caltrain and with convenient freeway access to both Highways 101 and 237.
The roughly $500 million project, slated to begin construction on June 1, totals approximately 540,000 sq-ft across three buildings. Officials say that it can be delivered in phases, allowing a tenant the unique opportunity to synchronize their growth plans with the commencement of occupancy.
The contractor is Level 10 Construction and the architect is KSH.
“The project is located in the Sunnyvale submarket of Peery Park which continues to exhibit strong market factors including high office leasing absorption rates,” says Jake Albini, construction and development director at Harvest Properties. “The 15-acre project site offers an amazing opportunity to redevelop several outdated R&D structures and create a class A office campus consisting of three buildings and two parking garages.”
Albini told me the project’s large amount of combined leasable office space will be “highly attractive” to many of the surrounding technology user groups that are in need of large swaths of space due to growth demands.
He says the greatest challenge he sees is the speed at which the joint venture would like to bring this new campus to market.
“We have teamed up with a local general contractor who has a vast amount of resources available and experience in Sunnyvale. One unique aspect for the project was that the parking structure was designed as a partially pre-cast concrete structure; however, production times for pre-cast components extended the overall construction schedule,” he says. “Harvest Properties and Level 10 Construction are working together to redesign the structure to cast-in-place, allowing a much quicker turnover of the project.”
The project is targeting a LEED Gold rating. Thus far, Albini says all of the project’s design credits have been approved by the USGBC. “We’ve been awarded 17 points in total for the enhanced commissioning and optimization of energy performance,” he says. “Through the use of detailed building energy models, the project team has carefully specified the MEP systems and equipment, as well as critical curtain wall components, to achieve an extremely efficient building design.”
The partnership says it anticipates it will deliver the first building in the third quarter of 2020. The first structure, containing approximately 190,000 sq-ft, will be located at 684 W. Maude Avenue.
“This development represents an incredible headquarter campus opportunity that will exceed the demands of today’s corporate users,” said Preston O’Connell, partner at Harvest Properties, in a news release.
Corporate neighbors to the new project include LinkedIn, Apple, Walmart.com, Microsoft, Nokia, Riverbed, Alibaba.com, Proofpoint, Synopsys, Twitter, and 23&Me.