NVIDIA to Develop $300M, 500 KSF HQ in Silicon Valley

By Gail Kalinoski, Contributing Editor

As it celebrates its 20^th birthday this month, chipmaker Nvidia announced plans to erect a 500,000-square-foot building on a 24-acre site in Santa Clara, Calif., the first part of an eventual 1 million-square-foot headquarters.

The development in the heart of Silicon Valley will be located on the south side of a parcel purchased by Nvidia in 2008. Several reports, including those in the San Jose Mercury News and Silicon Valley Business Journal, estimate the project will cost about $300 million.  Located west of San Tomas Expressway and bordered by Central Expressway and Walsh Avenue, it is across the street from the company’s existing 12-building, 1 million-square-foot campus.

Company founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang told the global technology firm’s employees about the planned expansion in a blog post. Noting that Nvidia started with three people and now has 8,000 employees in 40 sites, Huang said the current headquarters “barely has a spare desk. We’re absolutely bursting at the seams.”

Huang added that the he and collaborators wanted the campus to be as distinctive as the company itself, which produces chips for computer graphics. Created by architecture firm Gensler, Huang said the design plan “harmonizes smart functionality and a shape that connects with and inspires our employees – a triangle, the fundamental building block of computer graphics.”

Other members of the team are SRGNC CRES, L.L.C., a division of Sares Regis Group of Northern California, L.P., which is the development manager; Webcor, the general contractor, and Tom Leader Studio, the landscape architects.

“We are excited to develop an inspiring and productive workplace for Nvidia,” Jeff Birdwell, president of commercial development at SRGNC, said in a news release. “Our specialized team is committed to incorporating innovation and high energy into the work environment to reflect Nvidia’s collaborative, energetic culture.”

Birdwell said construction of Phase 1 will begin in June with occupancy scheduled for July 2015. The first 500,000-square-foot building will have two levels of office and lab space and two levels of parking for about 1,800 vehicles below the building, one of which will be below ground level. The initial building will accommodate up to 2,500 people. There is no timetable for construction of the second 500,000-squre-foot building, he noted. The firm has about 4,000 workers at its current site comprised of about 3,300 employees and additional contractors and vendors.

Nvidia isn’t the only tech company expanding its space in Silicon Valley. Google, Apple and Facebook are just a few of the big names in expansion mode there. Some of the biggest lease transactions in the fourth quarter of 2012 occurred in Silicon Valley, according to Cassidy Turley’s Office Market Snapshot Bay Area Fourth Quarter 2012 report. Apple leased 188,000 square feet at 5405 Stevens Creek Blvd. in Santa Clara; Netflix leased 137,000 square feet at a new development planned for Albright Way in Los Gatos; and EMC took 95,722 square feet at 2811 Mission College Blvd. in Santa Clara. The Cassidy Turley report also noted that Santa Clara County led the Bay Area in occupancy growth for the fourth quarter with its vacancy falling from 13.8 percent to 12.8 percent.

Other tech firms are building new space like Nvidia, including Apple, which is planning a 2.8 million-square-foot headquarters in Cupertino with a design described as spaceship. LinkedIn Corp. has contracted with Kilroy Realty Corp. to build a 587,000-square-foot office complex on a 12-acre parcel in Sunnyvale, Calif. The 12-year leasing and development deal is worth $315 million. Kilroy is also investing about $200 million to construct a 314,000-square-foot office campus for Synopsys Inc. in Menlo Park.

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