Recent job cuts at Broadcom Corp.’s local operations following its sale to Avago Technologies Ltd. appear to fall in line with the construction seen so far at the chipmaker’s new office campus being built at Great Park Neighborhoods in Irvine.
Activity is well under way for a number of buildings at the 73-acre development site, which sits at the southern end of the former El Toro Marine base just off the Santa Ana (I-5) Freeway.
Based on what’s been built so far, though, the first phase of the new campus will be a bit smaller than originally advertised, at least when it opens.
The company’s original plan for the first phase called for five buildings totaling 1.1 million square feet, with an opening slated for late 2017 or early 2018.
Broadcom held a groundbreaking for the new campus last March, and steel started rising from the ground around the end of the year.
What’s gone up so far: the structures for three of the four largest midrise buildings planned for the initial phase of development. Little if any work appears to have been done on a fourth core office building and a fifth, smaller low-rise building that would be built near the entrance of the campus just off Alton Parkway.
The project, even at a slightly slimmed-down size, still is the largest commercial office project to be built in Orange County in about a decade.
Broadcom’s $37 billion sale to Singapore-based Avago Technologies closed on Feb. 1, ending the Irvine chipmaker’s 20-year history as a locally based company.
The combined entity, known as Broadcom Ltd., is now headquartered in San Jose, where Avago President and Chief Executive Hock Tan spends most of his time.
Broadcom last week reported 689 job cuts in Irvine, including a large portion of its local executive team. The cuts represent nearly 30% of Broadcom’s local operations.
Broadcom also has plans to build a campus in North San Jose and late last year completed a deal to buy a 26-acre property there that currently holds four office buildings totaling about 537,000 square feet.
The site has space for more office development that will allow Broadcom to occupy about 1.1 million square feet.
The 73-acre Great Park site has the potential to expand to 2 million square feet in future development phases.
Development Push
Newport Beach-based KBS Realty Advisors, one of the country’s biggest investors in large office and residential towers in the past seven or so years, appears to be taking more interest in ground-up development of high-rises.
An affiliate of KBS is interested in building a 21-story apartment tower in Bellevue, Wash., totaling 260 units, according to local news reports.
KBS recently filed plans with the city to build Plaza Center Residences in downtown Bellevue. A public hearing on the proposal was scheduled for last week, according to the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.
The project’s timing will depend on “market conditions, financing and entitlements,” according to permit documents cited in the local report.
KBS affiliates own two nearby Bellevue office towers totaling nearly half a million square feet, which they bought in 2014 for a reported $186 million.
KBS also has development plans in Raleigh, N.C., where it has partnered with locally based Kane Realty Corp. to build a 12-story, 329,000-square-foot office tower. It already owns two office towers in and around that state’s capitol.
