AEW Buys San Jose Office Building for $80.15MM
Boston-based AEW Capital Management is the new owner of the 162,800 square foot 303 Almaden Blvd. property in San Jose. It purchased the property from a partnership of Four Corners Properties and Rockwood Capital for $80.15 million, or roughly $492 per square foot, according to a report from the Mercury News. Rockwood and Four Corners had owned the property since June of 2013, when they bought it for $40 million from Boston Properties.
303 Almaden is a Class A asset located in the downtown submarket of San Jose. The prior owners had invested money in upgrading the building, primarily the lobby, fitness center, outdoor areas and upper level floors. Global accounting and consulting firm Ernst & Young is one of the tenants in the building, as well as a couple of law firms and some smaller tenants.
In the greater Silicon Valley office market, San Jose has the second highest availability rate, according to a recent, first quarter of 2017 Colliers International Research & Forecast Report. At 12.7 percent, it stands behind only Santa Clara, which is at 24.4 percent. In addition to that there is a total of 1.63 million square feet of Class A office space under construction in the Silicon Valley city. Nonetheless, downtown San Jose has seen some renewed interest in the recent past. As the city announced its exclusive negotiations with Google last month, the most urbanized city of Silicon Valley has seen a number of transactions recently come through.
The Westin Hotel in San Jose sold for $64 million in June, and Blackstone invested $65 million in the Hyatt Place San Jose Downtown hotel complex. That was preceded by Western National Group buying 6.5 acres at the San Jose Flea Market for $35MM for housing and retail development. That project will also feature over one million square feet of office, when fully completed. At the same time, San Francisco-based TMG Partners and Valley Oak Partners announced a joint venture to develop one million square feet of office near the Diridon Station, in proximity to where Trammell Crow and Google are working on their project. Trammell Crow is looking to develop as many as eight million square feet of office, R&D, retail and amenities in that area.