Nvidia buys headquarters campus in Santa Clara for $374M

Forget the foreign investor who made a nine-figure offer to buy Nvidia’s headquarters in Santa Clara. The chipmaker has bought the 550,000-square-foot campus for $374 million.

Nvidia, whose market value has ballooned to more than $2.3 trillion as a result of the artificial intelligence boom, purchased the seven-building campus at 2788 San Tomas Expressway, the San Francisco Standard reported.

The seller was Nvidia landlord Preylock Holdings, based in Los Angeles, which declined to comment on the deal, which works out to $680 per square foot.

The six-parcel campus was expected to fetch more than $400 million, or $727 per square foot, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the potential sale. 

Preylock bought the campus from San Francisco-based DivcoWest in 2017 for $240 million, or $436 per square foot. 

The campus, occupied by the firm since 1998, includes seven office, research and data center buildings, plus two parking garages, linked by parks and overhead bridges.

This year, Preylock quietly auctioned the properties for sale after receiving an unsolicited offer from an unidentified would-be foreign buyer. Steven Golubchik of Newmark, whose colleagues represented the seller, also declined to comment.

The deal suggests Nvidia wanted to join blue-chip tech peers like Apple and Google in owning its headquarters, rather than paying a landlord. The purchase comes with 2 million square feet of future development rights, allowing the chipmaker to expand its hub.

Nvidia, which has seen its valuation skyrocket from its role in making chips that drive the artificial intelligence revolution, was the sole tenant on the property.

The company has aggressively expanded its office footprint in the area.

Between 2018 and 2022, Nvidia built two nearby office buildings, containing 1.2 million square feet. Those buildings, named Voyager and Endeavor after “Star Trek” spaceships, are owned by Nvidia and not part of the recent sale.

In January, Preylock Holdings scored $181 million in loans to refinance the Nvidia headquarters property, according to The Real Deal.

— Dana Bartholomew

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