Jessen says the Flextronics complex, built in the late 1970s, is outfitted with an extraordinarily large chemical farm, with one tank in excess of one million gallons. The circuit board shop also contains a de-ionized water system and shared power sources with the Domain. The Flextronics property and the Domain formed the 220-acre IBM Corp. complex, but were subdivided after IBM vacated.

"The right user would find a great deal of value in the equipment that's in there," Jessen says. But, the marketing plan will be to find a buyer of any type. "We don't want to box ourselves in and say this is what the use is. We want to keep all the options open." Those options will include approaching developers who would be open to razing part of the complex and undertaking a conversion of the manufacturing site.

Jessen realizes the timing is off in the market for such a large sale. Still, he's optimistic. Just how long it could take--that's a crystal ball question he's not prepared to answer until he gets a better feel of the types of users that might be out there these days.

The holding is simply excess property from Flextronics' perspective. The corporation is a month out from taking the keys to a 500,000 sf first-phase project in Dallas. The 126-acre campus at build out will contain 1.3 million sf and is being developed by Catellus Development Corp. of San Francisco and Dallas-based Jackson-Shaw Co. Flextronics holds a long-term lease with an option to buy the site. None of the Austin operation is being rolled into Dallas, says Jessen.