Why Westcore Wants to Spend Big in SV
Westcore has allocated more than $400M to its acquisition program this year, with a heavy focus on Silicon Valley. We caught up with founder and chairman Marc Brutten, who told us why the company is so hot on the market.
Marc, a former Ju-Jitsu champion (center, taking the No. 1 title), tells us though competition in the Bay is fierce, the firm remains focused on finding and identifying prospects in cities from Hayward down to San Jose, where transaction velocity is "not as rapid." The firm saw its busiest two months on record from December to February, having bought and sold 11 properties totaling 2.7M SF for more than $300M. Six of the 11 properties were located in California, while the others were in Denver, Indianapolis, Tempe and Cleveland. Since February, an additional seven deals totaling $215M are in the pipeline. In addition to its US headquarters in San Diego, Westcore has regional offices in S.F., Oakland, Sacramento and Denver.
VP of asset management Victoria Grether (snapped during the company's annual four-day broker trip at a cattle ranch) tells us the firm also has looked to the peripheral communities of Fremont and Union City as Palo Alto and Mountain View have approached or surpassed the high water mark of 2006. She also told us about a new 165k SF office and data center site the company purchased in Sunnyvale for $52.7M.
Here's the R&D campus in Sunnyvale (1390 and 1400 Kifer Rd). Other current and planned projects in the immediate Silicon Valley area include the 105k SF Chefs’ Warehouse (1250 Whipple Rd) in Union City; the Central Pacific and Central Plaza Class-A warehouse/distribution properties it's building to suit in Union City (1550 Pacific and 3306-33580 Alvarado Niles Rd); a 550k SF R&D campus in Milpitas; and multiple large industrial properties.
