SUNNYVALE — A Sunnyvale site ripe for redevelopment and located in one of Silicon Valley’s hot spots has been bought by a veteran real estate firm.
Ellis Partners, acting through an affiliate, has bought 335 E. Moffett Park Drive, according to documents filed on Sept. 16 with the Santa Clara County Recorder’s Office.
The veteran Bay Area development firm paid $28 million for the two-building property, the county documents show.
San Francisco-based Ellis Partners bought the building through an all-cash deal, according to the county records. Ellis Partners didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the situation.
Los Gatos-based Cilker Orchards Management was the seller.
The building is in part of Sunnyvale that has become one of Silicon Valley’s hottest spots for development, leasing, and commercial property purchase activity.
Among the notable property owners or tenants in the vicinity of the just-bought site:
— Google owns or leases an array of office buildings and other properties in the vicinity or even adjacent to the property that Ellis Partners now owns.
— Facebook app owner Meta Platforms has signed a lease for a huge campus a half-mile away that’s called Moffett Green and totals 719,000 square feet. Meta Platforms is a tenant in another mega campus in Sunnyvale.
— That same Moffett Green campus was bought in June by Commonwealth Partners for $707 million. In 2021, Tishman Speyer, the seller in that deal, bought the campus for $365 million, then soon landed Meta Platforms as a tenant, which helped to dramatically ratchet up the value of the campus.
— Apple and Amazon also lease numerous sites in Sunnyvale, and Apple has also bought some modestly sized sites in the city.
— Jay Paul Co., one of the Bay Area’s most savvy and successful developers, has built several office buildings in the area and landed tech titans such as Google, Amazon and Meta, the Facebook app owner, as tenants.
The real value of the property that Ellis Partners bought could be the five acres of land beneath the two buildings, which together total 88,900 square feet.
If replaced by modern office buildings, it could be possible to build a modern campus totaling roughly 150,000 square feet on the property. That would be nearly double the office space that exists now on the site.
