An investor is considering the possibility of converting a Silicon Valley research and development campus it just purchased that once served as one of Google’s early office spaces into much-needed housing.
San Francisco-based Blox Ventures said it paid $11 million, or $112 per square foot, for a 97,850-square-foot, three-building office and flex campus on just over 7 acres at 2400-2450 Bayshore Parkway and 2425 Garcia Ave. in Mountain View, California. The town is home to Google’s current sprawling headquarters as well as the offices of financial software giant Intuit, cybersecurity company Symantec and other major tech players.
In a press release, Blox called the acquisition of the property part of its “strategic focus on investing in dynamic communities with strong growth potential.” It did not name the seller, but Alexandria Real Estate Equities, one of the nation’s largest holders of life science and tech real estate, purchased the three-building portfolio in 2012 for an undisclosed price, according to CoStar.
“This is a uniquely positioned site on more than seven acres with a central courtyard and a true campus feel — in the heart of one of the world’s most innovative communities,” Blox CEO Jason Oberman said in the statement from the company.
Google moved into its first Mountain View office at 2400 Bayshore Parkway back in 1999 with fewer than 50 employees, though only a few years later, the company began transitioning into its massive new headquarters at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway. It is now the city’s biggest employer, with more than 24,000 workers at the “Googleplex,” representing more than 20% of the city’s workforce.
New housing or not?
Blox noted that the property is within the boundaries of the city’s North Bayshore Precise Plan, a long-term blueprint hammered out by officials that aims to transform the area north of the 101 freeway into a sustainable, vibrant mixed-use neighborhood of thousands of new homes as well as retail and public parks. California officials are striving to create sustainable, transit-friendly pedestrian neighborhoods up and down the state.
“We’re encouraged by the strong support from the city and state for new housing, and we look forward to continued conversations with the city on how this site might contribute to meeting that need,” Oberman said.
In 2023, Mountain View officials approved an ambitious plan led by Google to transform the area that has long been dominated by office buildings into 7,000 units of new housing and other uses as part of a $1 billion pledge by the tech giant to help ease a housing shortage in the San Francisco Bay Area that the company acknowledged it had helped create.
But none of that promised housing in Silicon Valley has been built and it’s not clear if it ever will be, as Google has drastically curtailed its real estate expansion in the region in the wake of a gutted post-pandemic office market. The company recently confirmed that it was looking to sell a 40-acre site near its Mountain View headquarters that had been slated to become a dense, transit-oriented development with 1,900 homes, a light rail station and 10 acres of parks. The plan was part of a 2022 deal with the city in which Google had agreed to donate a 2.4-acre parcel valued at $53 million for the development of around 380 units of affordable housing.
The Alphabet-owned company has shed pieces of its former massive real estate holdings, and the company cut ties with its would-be partner on the projects, the Australian developer Lendlease, in 2023.
Mountain View, a well-appointed suburb dotted with business parks and bike paths, is required by the state to add more than 11,000 homes by the end of 2031. Meanwhile, rents in the region — long one of most expensive places to live in the United States — are rising again after several years of decline because of the pandemic. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Mountain View is about $3,200, nearly double the nation's average.
Blox describes itself as “focused on acquiring, repositioning, and managing high-quality properties in technology-centric markets.” A few months ago, the firm purchased a distressed eight-story East Bay office building in a well-trafficked shopping and retail area for the bargain price of $6.8 million. Its portfolio mostly consists of office properties in Silicon Valley and a handful in Salt Lake City, but its website also lists some multifamily and mixed-use holdings.
The company added in the press release that the three-building office campus at Bayshore Parkway and Garcia Avenue “offers state-of-the-art infrastructure” that could position it as R&D or office space for artificial intelligence and robotics companies and other tenants. It was not clear how much of the complex is leased.
Mountain View is the second-largest office submarket in the San Jose metropolitan area. While the vacancy rate remains around 19%, leasing activity has increased in the past six months, with notable deals including Amazon's taking of 218,000 square feet of sublet space at 401 San Antonio Road in late 2024 and Intuit renewing its lease for 85,000 square feet in two buildings on Garcia Avenue.