Tech company widens East Bay shopping spree with new real estate deal
Fortinet has widened its shopping spree for East Bay real estate with the purchase of a commercial building in Union City.
UNION CITY — Fortinet has widened its shopping spree for East Bay real estate with the purchase of a commercial building in Union City, the latest in a string of property acquisitions the tech company began eight years ago.
Including a wide-ranging hunt for properties in the South Bay that greatly exceeds the company’s activities in Union City, Fortinet has spent well over a half-billion dollars to buy sites in Santa Clara County and Alameda County.
In Alameda County, Fortinet, a cybersecurity company, has spent an eyebrow-raising $209 million to buy several commercial or industrial properties in Union City, according to a review by this news organization of Alameda County public documents going back to 2016.
In the most recent East Bay deal, Fortinet paid $14.8 million for an industrial building at 1550 Atlantic Street in Union City, documents filed on Jan. 29 with the Alameda County Recorder’s Office show.
The seller, Northwood Design Partners, a manufacturer of custom-made furniture, occupies the site. The 1550 Atlantic building totals about 54,000 square feet, according to the Property Shark website.
Starting in 2016, Fortinet has bought nine parcels in Union City in eight separate transactions, including the most recent one, Alameda County records show.
Sunnyvale-based Fortinet has launched an even larger buying effort in Santa Clara County, an effort that extends back more than a decade to 2012.
Fortinet has paid $326.7 million for numerous properties in Santa Clara County, according to this news organization’s review of public real estate documents.
The cybersecurity company’s purchases include a site where the company built its current headquarters at 909 Kifer Road in Sunnyvale.
Fortinet’s most recent — and what appears to be its largest — acquisition in the region was completed on Jan. 26, when the company bought a huge Texas Instruments campus that consists of multiple office and research buildings at and near 3833 Kifer Road in Santa Clara.
ln an all-cash deal, Fortinet paid $192 million for the 27-acre tech campus, Santa Clara County documents show.
The company made it clear in comments that it emailed to this news organization at the time of the Santa Clara campus deal that it is fully invested in growth in the Bay Area, as shown by its ongoing property deals.
“Fortinet is immensely proud to call the Bay Area home for over 20 years,” Fortinet stated through an email from the company’s communications staff.
The potential expansion efforts arrive at a time when Fortinet’s profits and sales are soaring.
Over the one-year period that ended in September 2023, Fortinet earned $1.15 billion on revenue of $5.17 billion. In the calendar year 2022, Fortinet earned $857 million on revenue of $4.42 billion.
“Fortinet is committed to its roots in the Bay Area and contributes to jobs and growth in the surrounding community,” the company stated in the email.