LinkedIn leases 175K sf Sunnyvale building, spends $123M on adjacent site

LinkedIn expanded its commitment to its home city of Sunnyvale, leasing a 175,000-square-foot office building and spending almost $123 million on adjacent properties that can support a new office and research complex.

The professional networking service signed an approximately 15-year lease on the building at 684 W. Maude Avenue and a six-story parking garage next door, according to a document filed with the Santa Clara County Clerk-Recorder’s Office on Dec. 3. During that time, the company has the right of first offer to purchase all or a portion of the site of both structures, which were developed by Harvest Properties and Invesco and completed in December 2020. It also has the option to extend its lease term up to 14 years, according to the document, which didn’t disclose how much it is paying at the start of its term.

In a separate transaction, LinkedIn paid about $755 a square foot to acquire a pair of nearby office and research buildings from the Harvest-Invesco venture, according to a deed filed with the county. It has the option to demolish the buildings at 810 and 870 W. Maude Avenue, totaling about 162,600 square feet between them, and build an office and research complex offering about twice as much space as what’s there now, plus a six-story parking structure, according to an approved project proposal on file with the city of Sunnyvale.
The Mercury News earlier reported details of the sale and lease transactions.

Not included in the sale was a one-story office building at 470 Potrero Avenue that Harvest and Invesco acquired as part of a four-property acquisition in 2019. The joint venture spent about $165 million to purchase an empty lot it redeveloped into the 175,000-square-foot office building LinkedIn agreed to rent; the pair of buildings it sold to the company last week; and the 470 Potrero Avenue structure, which is located within the site of the approved office and research complex development but not part of the project, according to plans on file with the city.

LinkedIn and Harvest Properties declined to comment. Representatives for Invesco didn’t follow up on requests for comment.

The pair of deals come less than six months after LinkedIn spent $323 million to purchase the site of its global Sunnyvale headquarters, a sign of its willingness to keep a long-term presence in the Silicon Valley city. The company had more than 3,500 Sunnyvale employees as of January 2020, almost twice the size of its workforce there in 2016, according to the latest city data and the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

“During our regular check-ins with LinkedIn, they have shared that they needed more space to expand their operations here,” Connie Verceles, the city’s economic development manager, said in a Monday email. “We’re thrilled that LinkedIn is expanding their presence in Sunnyvale, and we look forward to working with them.”

Before selling the two buildings at 810 and 870 W. Maude Avenue, Harvest and Invesco received the city’s approval to demolish one of them but had not pulled that permit yet, Sunnyvale spokesperson Jennifer Garnett said Monday. The joint venture submitted a trio of permit applications last year to build an approximately 324,000-square-foot office and research complex and a six-level parking garage on the site of those existing properties. The city has since provided comments on those permits but can’t issue them until they receive responses, Garnett said.

[The Mercury News] — Matthew Niksa

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