Logitech lease ends nearly six-year drought at Assembly campus in SJ

Logitech has leased an 86,000-square-foot building within a North San Jose office and research campus that’s been empty for almost six years.

Switzerland-based Logitech, which makes keyboards, computer mice and headsets, signed a lease on the 86,243-square-foot building at 3930 North First Street this week, a broker with direct knowledge but no involvement in the transaction told The Real Deal. The property occupies the southeast corner of the campus known as the Assembly at North First, a six-building, 490,000-square-foot complex bounded by Headquarters Drive to the west, Rose Orchard Way to the north, and North First Street to the south and east. The property was previously occupied by Lam Research, which vacated it sometime during the second half of 2016 after a partnership of SKS Partners, ProspectHill Group and Invesco Real Estate paid $82 million, or $190 a square foot, to acquire it from the semiconductor equipment maker. In September, the partnership sold the Assembly to real estate investment manager EQT Exeter for $192 million, or about $392 a square foot.

JLL’s Steve Clark, who represented Logitech in the deal, declined comment, as did Newmark’s Joe Kelly and EQT. A Newmark team of Kelly, Mike Saign, Shawn Kellenberger and Eric Bluestein represented EQT in the transaction. A Logitech spokesperson didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The deal makes Logitech the first company to lease space at the Assembly in almost six years, during which time the property underwent an extensive renovation. The project, commissioned by the SKS-ProspectHill-Invesco partnership, included combining two buildings into one, completely gutting that structure and the two immediately adjacent to it that front North First Street, and creating an acre of outdoor space. Construction work began in 2017 and wrapped up in late 2018, around the time Colliers, the Assembly’s then-listing broker, brought it to market for lease.

Google was rumored in late 2019 to be in talks with the campus’ ownership and Colliers to lease as much as 800,000 to 900,000 square feet there. That deal would’ve seen the company take the three renovated buildings fronting North First Street, which combined contain 300,000 square feet. Google was thought to also be considering a large chunk of the Assembly’s “redevelopment potential” — a trio of structures immediately north that can be demolished and replaced with more than 1 million square feet of new office and research space.

Negotiations fell through later that year for reasons that remain unknown save for the parties involved, just a few months before the pandemic dried up almost all new demand for office and research property. Newmark replaced Colliers as the Assembly’s listing broker after EQT purchased it last year.

A recent flurry of mid-to-large-sized leases for office and research buildings in North San Jose shows that demand is picking up. Three of Silicon Valley’s five largest leases for such properties were in the area last quarter, according to Cushman & Wakefield data. Logitech’s lease on 3930 North First Street extends that streak and could lead more companies to consider taking the Assembly’s other five buildings, which remain available for rent.

Logitech intends to use 75,000 square feet of the building’s space as offices, according to a tenant improvement application filed with the city earlier this month that’s under review.

The company occupies a 158,000-square-foot office and research building at 7700 Gateway Boulevard in Newark as its U.S. headquarters. The entire building is now up for rent but won’t be available for occupancy until the second quarter of next year. Kidder Mathews’ Gregg Domanico and three of the firm’s brokers are marketing that building and nine adjacent ones that make up the so-called Pacific Research Center for lease.

Domanico declined to disclose the name of the tenant leasing 7700 Gateway Boulevard or how much it’s paying in rent other than to say it’s below market. That address is the same one as Logitech’s U.S. base, according to the company’s website. It’s unclear how much Logitech is paying in rent at the start of its lease term on 3930 North First Street. Newmark’s website doesn’t list the Assembly’s asking rent.

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