Westcore Redeveloping Surplus AMD Property

SUNNYVALE, CA-Westcore Properties LLC of San Diego is razing and redeveloping a portion of Advanced Micro Devices’ former seven-acre property here, which has sat dormant for the better part of a decade. Westcore recently acquired the entire five-building property from AMD for $4.8 million in an off-market transaction and promptly sold off three, one-story concrete tilt-ups, two to an owner-user and one to an investor-developer.”The sales substantially reduced our cost basis in the remainder of the property,” Westcore director of acquisitions Gary Katz tells GlobeSt.com. He declined to reveal the actual sale prices and they were not otherwise immediately available.On the remaining 3.5 acres sits a two-building, 50,000-sf former circuit board manufacturing facility that Westcore plans to raze. Although the tentative plan is to redevelop the site with several small industrial buildings for sale to owner-users, Katz says Westcore may also just map it and sell the lots or sell the property as a whole. “The sales comps are terrific for small buildings,” Katz says. A portion of the property that sits on Arques Avenue, adjacent to the proposed future site of Lowe’s home improvement store, will likely be developed with a retail building, he says. Alan Guterman and Steve Horton of Commercial Property Services in Santa Clara have the sales assignment.Westcore has been acquisitive in the Northern California market as of late, acquiring approximately $140 million of real estate since January. The company’s investment goal for this year is to acquire $500 million in industrial, retail and office properties in California and the Western US that will include core, core-plus and value-added opportunities.In May, the company announced the $15.1-million acquisition of a 167,000-sf six-building R&D/ Industrial business center within the Fremont Business Center in Fremont. In April, it announced the $78.6-million acquisition of a 23-building, 613,358-sf portfolio of R&D, light industrial and office buildings in the cities of San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and Fremont. In late 2004, the company paid $52.8 million for Vasona Technology Park, a seven-building office/R&D park totaling 307,000 sf in Campbell.