Real estate: Big investors grab Symantec Mountain View buildings

Real estate firms Steelwave and Angelo Gordon & Co. have teamed up through an affiliate to buy Symantec office buildings on North Whisman Road in Mountain View in a major Silicon Valley property deal.

MOUNTAIN VIEW — Two big Symantec office buildings have been bought by an alliance of veteran real estate firms that could redevelop the Mountain View parcels.

Bay Area developer Steelwave and New York City-based real estate investor Angelo Gordon & Co. control the affiliate that bought two buildings on North Whisman Road in Mountain View, according to Santa Clara County records filed on April 2.

Arizona-based NortonLifeLock, a software firm once known as Symantec — the creator of the Norton security software programs — sold the buildings to the real estate alliance.

The Steelwave and Angelo Gordon group paid $100.5 million for the two buildings, which have addresses of 515 N. Whisman Road and 545 N. Whisman Road, county property documents show.

For more than a year, NortonLifeLock has been attempting to sell a huge portfolio of 10 office buildings in Mountain View, stated a marketing brochure circulated in early 2020 by Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate firm.

At one point, NortonLifeLock sought a single buyer for all 10 buildings. Real estate sources believe that a deal fell through for a 10-building purchase soon after coronavirus-linked business shutdowns began in the spring of 2020.

The two just-purchased buildings on Whisman Road are part of that original portfolio. Together, the two Mountain View buildings that have just been bought total about 154,400 square feet. Each building totals roughly 76,200 square feet.

Perhaps of greater value than the buildings is the land beneath them. The parcels total a combined 10 acres.

Some of the zoning rules that enable higher-density redevelopment in the region could allow the construction of an office complex of 300,000 square feet — double the size of the existing offices. Some scenarios could allow for even greater density.

The buyers also obtained a financing package that allows them to tap up to $102 million from the loan, the county documents show. That loan matures in April 2024. The lender is an entity called Parlex 2A Finco, which is a unit of Blackstone Mortgage Trust, a real estate financier.

In light of the just-completed purchase, it now appears that any property sales involving the portfolio would occur in a piecemeal fashion and not involve all 10 buildings simultaneously.

Google occupies multiple buildings next to the properties that were put up for sale. The search giant’s proximity to the buildings that went on the market made it a candidate to purchase one or more of the sites.

The remaining eight buildings in the original sales package are clustered into two groups:

— a five-building cluster at 350 Ellis St. that is described as the headquarters campus and totals 428,000 square feet.

— a complex at 455, 487, and 501 E. Middlefield Road, which contains older office and research buildings, as well as a data center. These three buildings total 128,000 square feet.

“It is a strong preference of the seller for one buyer to acquire the entire portfolio,” the Cushman & Wakefield brochure stated. However, the offering package also stated “Individual offers on the various components may be considered.”

Symantec, which was founded in 1982 in Sunnyvale, had maintained its headquarters in Mountain View for years.

According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the company’s headquarters were still deemed to be in Mountain View as of the end of August 2019.

However, by November 2019, the company’s headquarters were listed as being in Tempe, Ariz., an SEC filing disclosed. During that same month, NortonLifeLock became the official name of the company.

The original sales package for the buildings described the properties as being in a choice section of Silicon Valley.

“Never before offered to the marketplace, the offering represents a generational opportunity to acquire a portfolio of 10 buildings totaling 706,737 square feet in the heart of Silicon Valley,” the Cushman & Wakefield brochure said.