KBS Sells Silicon Valley Office Buildings for $95M

100 Headquarters Drive. Image courtesy of KBS

Office transactions largely ground to a halt after California’s stay-at-home order went into effect in March, but the lockdown didn’t stop a Miami-based real estate fund manager from scooping up a pair of Raytheon-leased buildings within a Silicon Valley office and R&D complex for $95.2 million.

EXAN Group acquired the two buildings within the District 237 complex in North San Jose from private equity real estate heavyweight KBS, paying roughly $667 per square foot for the Class A assets, which span a total of 142,710 square feet. The low-rise buildings at 100 Headquarters Drive and 200 Holger Way were part of the KBS Real Estate Investment Trust II portfolio.

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EXAN’s deal to acquire the properties was awarded in April, according to an account by the Silicon Valley Business Journal that cites information from the brokerage. That was after the coronavirus prompted city officials across the Bay Area to roll out a shelter-in-place order on March 17, followed by California imposing a statewide lockdown on March 20.

In a prepared statement, Juan Jose Zaragoza, EXAN managing partner & founder, indicated that the company had deployed overseas capital for the purchase of the buildings.

Repositioning an office park

District 237. Image courtesy of KBS

KBS picked up the assets from EQ Office in 2013 as part of its $239 million purchase of the eight-building Corporate Technology Centre portfolio. The company then sold off three of the buildings (400, 450 and 475 Holger Way) for $97.4 million in 2018, before renovating and rebranding the remaining five buildings as District 237.

Completed from 1999 to 2001, the original Corporate Technology Centre measures a total of 610,083 square feet across a 32.7-acre site. The repositioning effort by KBS created 100,000 square feet of premium spec space and lured three global companies to the five-building office campus, including defense contractor Raytheon, NXP Semiconductors and CDK Global.

Raytheon leased the two buildings at 100 Headquarters Drive and 200 Holger Way this past February, with plans move into the new facility during the first quarter of 2022, a company spokesperson told the media at the time.

District 237 is adjacent to the @First retail center and has more than 3,000 feet of frontage along Highway 237. The property is located within 10 minutes of the San Jose International Airport and 15 minutes of the city’s central business district. CBRE’s Joe Moriarty, Scott Prosser, Jack DePuy, Russell Ingrum, Brad Zampa and Mike Walker brokered the sale by KBS.

Another San Jose deal

In April, CBRE Global Investors reportedly agreed to buy the recently completed, 369,000-square-foot office complex, called 237@First, less than a mile away from District 237. The company is said to be paying just under $200 million for the six-story buildings at 4353 and 4453 N. First St.

EXAN has built a $1.3 billion portfolio of primarily commercial properties in the U.S., its 2019 corporate brochure indicates. The company’s office holdings include nine properties valued at about $1 billion and totaling 1.4 million square feet. An EXAN affiliate purchased 1701 Rhode Island, an office property fully occupied by WeWork in Washington, D.C., for $119 million last year.