Three years after submitting its first proposal to the city of San Jose to redevelop a 1997 office building, Ellis Partners today confirmed that the remodeled 291,000 square foot campus dubbed 101 Tech is off the market. Jim Ellis, managing principal of Ellis Partners, in a telephone conversation tonight confirmed the building had been leased but declined to provide any additional information about the tenant and the specifics of the lease.
Sources from the industry have been speculating for several weeks that this tenant is Apple, and today this has been confirmed.
101 Tech, located in proximity to the San Jose airport, is a redeveloped building that Ellis Partners purchased in August of 2011 for $48.5 million, or nearly $167 per square foot, according to public records. The property consists of 12.9 acres of vacant land and a two-story, 291,000 square corporate headquarters building. In May of 2012, the San Francisco-based developer submitted formal entitlements to develop the campus into a complex that can host additional three six-story Class A office buildings totaling 665,000 square feet and a gathering hall that can house a private food court and fitness center. At the time, it was hailed as a much needed “new generation” office space to the Highway 101 & 87 corridor in North San Jose.
No new development has begun on the location, although the investors presumably retain this option. One thing that Ellis did confirm is that the investment partner on the deal is a private source with a very long-term outlook on the market.
In December of last year, Ellis Partners announced that Cushman & Wakefield had been appointed as the leasing agent for its 961,000 square-foot campus (total square footage of the existing building and the entitled additional three buildings). The team advising Ellis is comprised of Jeff Cushman, Jim McPhee, Michael McMillan and Scott Dever.
“Across the Bay Area, Ellis Partners has enjoyed great success with Cushman & Wakefield in leasing several of its Bay Area assets. Now that we’ve completed the renovation of the existing building and received all necessary approvals on our development sites at 101 Tech, we are ready to build on these successes by partnering with C&W on landing the right users” said Jim Ellis, in a prepared statement at the time.
