Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal by Mary Ann Azevedo, Reporter
Date: Thursday, May 3, 2012, 1:30pm PDT

Four Corners Properties LLC and Rockwood Capital LLC have bought the former Mayfield Mall site, a 500,000-square-foot vacant office campus on the border of Mountain View and Palo Alto from William Lyon Homes for $90 million.

The 27-acre-parcel, located at 100 Mayfield Ave., was once home to Hewlett-Packard Co. offices. Developer William Lyon Homes, working with Summit Land Partners, in recent years had received entitlements to build single-family homes and condominiums on the 21.2-acre Mountain View portion of the site. It was going to tear down the more than half a million square feet of existing office space.

But now Four Corners and Rockwood Capital plan to renovate the campus into Class A office space, and will rename the property the “San Antonio Station.”

“We are seeing strong demand from companies who desire their own campus, but there are few, if any quality existing structures available and the majority of new construction is not designed for a true campus environment,” said Bruce Burkard, principal at Four Corners Properties, in a prepared statement.

He added that the campus will be ready for occupancy well before other campuses that are still being built out because the partners “are simply renovating the existing property, which has incredible existing infrastructure.”

Bob Gray, partner at Rockwood, said one of the cornerstones of his firm’s investment strategy is to acquire property in evolving mixed-use urban cores.

“Revitalizing the former Mayfield Mall, which is proximate to transit, housing and retail, is one of the ‘greenest’ forms of investment our firm can make,” he said in a prepared statement. “We are confident that a high quality renovation of San Antonio Station, which will include the latest building technology, will be well received by Silicon Valley companies.”

Four Corners is known for commercial development and investment. The firm has completed the acquisition of 21 buildings totaling 1.2 million square feet of office and R&D space representing a total investment of about $212 million.

In the past year alone, Four Corners acquired two office buildings in Santa Clara as well as a site on 590 E. Middlefield in Mountain View where it plans to construct a 100,000-square-foot Class A office building for Omnicell Inc.

It was rumored that a large technology company was eyeing the former Mayfield Mall site, but it’s not unlikely that Four Corners and Rockwood purchased the land with one in mind.

The property was originally constructed in 1966 as a shopping center called the Mayfield Mall. It was the first enclosed air-conditioned shopping mall in northern California. Hewlett-Packard purchased the property in 1986 and converted the mall into an office campus with dramatic interior atriums and high ceilings. William Lyon purchased the property in October 2011.

Kevin Cunningham of Cornish & Carey Commercial Newmark Knight Frank is representing Rockwood Capital and Four Corners Properties in leasing out the space.