Irvine-based tech giant Broadcom will move to Great Park Neighborhoods after agreeing to buy land for a new 1.1 million-square-foot corporate headquarters, the company announced Thursday. It has the option to expand to up to 2 million square feet. The campus will be designed by M. Arthur Gensler Jr. & Associates, Inc. and built by DPR Construction. It will include development labs and open-office work spaces.
One of the company’s subsidiaries entered into a land-purchase agreement with Heritage Fields El Toro LLC, a partnership made up of Lennar Homes and its investors. Once the new headquarters is built, it will be the first commercial development at Great Park Neighborhoods.
A statement released by the company didn’t mention a price.
“We are thrilled to move forward with Broadcom’s new corporate campus in the city of Irvine. Owning land and building a campus provides Broadcom with favorable economics and flexibility for the long-term,” said Scott McGregor, Broadcom’s president and chief executive officer, in a statement.
The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2015, the company said. Broadcom will begin construction in 2015, and the campus will be ready for occupancy in 2017.
The move was considered imminent after Irvine’s planning commission approved a plan in July.
Broadcom’s announcement culminates about three years of searching for a new headquarters amid continued growth. The company makes communications chips, often found in smartphones.
Broadcom’s headquarters staff grew from about 150 people in 2000 to 1,800 by the time it moved to its current home in March 2007. The chip maker currently leases 920,000 square feet at University Research Park near UC Irvine, including eight buildings that landlord Irvine Co. built for it.
The company now has 2,500 workers in Irvine, according to the Orange County Business Journal.
Its current lease expires in 2018, said Irvine Co. spokesman Mike Lyster. The Irvine Co. doesn’t yet have a tenant to fill the buildings Broadcom plans to vacate. The Irvine Co. declined to disclose Broadcom’s rent. But based on average lease rates in South County, it’s likely its rent tops $2 million a month.
“With University Research Park now 99 percent full, we expect to see strong interest in the campus,” Lyster said.
Register staff writer Jeff Collins contributed to this report.
