Big office complex deal points to hot Silicon Valley tech sector

SANTA CLARA — A big office complex in Santa Clara has been bought by a realty firm with ties to China in a deal that shows how a robust tech sector has bolstered sturdy investor interest in Silicon Valley.

Central Technology Park in Santa Clara, which has undergone a wide-ranging facelift by the seller in the deal, legendary developer The Sobrato Organization, was bought by a veteran real estate investment firm.

Gemini Rosemont, acting through an affiliate, paid $170.5 million for Central Technology Park, according to Santa Clara County property documents that were filed on May 9. Bank of America provided a $98.5 million loan to help finance the purchase, the county records show.

“The addition of Central Technology Park to our portfolio underscores our ongoing investment strategy to acquire Class A office assets in targeted U.S. locations, which include Silicon Valley,” said Ian Brownlow, chief executive officer with Los Angeles-based Gemini Rosemont.

The deal shows that an array of buyers, including purchasers with backing from overseas companies, hunger for quality assets in Silicon Valley, where a boom is underway that’s being led by big tech industry players.

“The buyers in the deal have been very persistent in trying to find quality assets in the area,” said Eric Fox, an executive managing director with Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate firm. “They had been looking for a while.”

Central Technology Park totals 396,000 square feet and consists of four large office buildings within an area that’s roughly bounded by Central Expressway, Corvin Drive, Kifer Road, and Copper Road.

The office complex’s tenants include Intuitive Surgical, Nissan, Thermo Fisher, and Cloudinary. The most recent major lease in the development came early this year when Intuitive Surgical, a top player in advanced medical equipment, leased 210,000 square feet in a deal arranged by brokers from commercial realty firms JLL, Newmark Knight Frank and CBRE.

The buyer of the office park, Gemini Rosemont, was formed in 2015 as a partnership of Gemini Investments, a Hong Kong-based unit of Sino-Ocean Group, a Chinese real estate investment company, and Rosemont Realty.

“The commitment to the area by the world’s technology community coupled with the institutional quality, fully-leased multi-building campus makes Central Technology Park an extremely attractive investment,” Gemini Rosemont CEO Brownlow said.

The newly bought Central Technology Park is relatively proximate to the Caltrain stop at Lawrence Station in Sunnyvale. Plus, hundreds of residences are being developed or in the pipeline nearby.

Experts believe investors will continue to slake their thirst for properties in Santa Clara County.

“The desire to be part of the Silicon Valley market remains strong,” Fox said.

Among the factors: Digital behemoths such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Adobe, and LinkedIn have grabbed expansion sites for increasing levels of employees in Silicon Valley through a head-spinning series of property purchases, mega leases, or both.

“This is still a very hot investment market,” said Julie Leiker, Cushman & Wakefield market director. “The demand for space starts at the top with the big players. As long as the large tech companies keep expanding, the rest of the spaces will be taken by smaller companies, and this will keep going.”