Intel Buys Property Adjacent Ronler Acres

HILLSBORO, OR-Intel last week added to its Ronler Acres campus here by acquiring a 46-acre parcel on Shute Road that holds 383,000 sf of buildings, including two industrial buildings and a 26,000-sf office building. The Santa Clara, CA-based computing products giant paid $13 million for the land and improvements, which last year had an assessed market value of $46.5 million.Solectron, a Milpitas, CA-based contract electronics manufacturer, has been winding down its operations at the site in recent months. A company representative was not immediately available for comment Tuesday afternoon. An Intel spokesman tells GlobeSt.com that “significant” interior upgrades and retrofits are under way and that the industrial buildings will be utilized as warehouses, the office building as office space for support personnel. “I don’t think it will have any impact on our leased space,” he says. “It will be used more to move people around within Ronler Acres.”The 46-acre property was originally part of a 188-acre chunk of land owned by Tokyo-based NEC Corp. In 2000, NEC sold 142 acres surrounding the property to Intel for $15.6 million and sold the remaining 46-acre property as an operating electronics manufacturing plant to NatSteel Electronics Corp. of Singapore for $200 million. Shortly thereafter, Solectron acquired NatSteel. As of 2003, the assesed value of the improvements was $37.4 million and the assessed value of the land was $9.1 millionBrad Fletcher of Grubb & Ellis in Portland represented Intel in the acquisition of both properties. Portland-based Integrated Corporate Property Services represented Solectron. Fletcher declined comment on the specifics of the transactions, citing confidentiality agreements; however, he did have one comment.”Intel’s takedown of the Solectron property is a strategic acquisition of a very attractive and major Sunset Corridor corporate complex at a compelling value,” he says. “The purchase was perfectly timed and makes ultimate sense as it rounds out their Ronler Acres campus.”Since opening its first Oregon facility in 1976, Intel has grown to seven campuses here comprising 14,500 employees and more than 7.7 million sf of buildings, making Oregon Intel’s largest and most complex site in the world.