The latest technology tenant that Irvine Co. has landed to replace Broadcom Ltd. at University Research Park shouldn’t need help with directions to its new headquarters.
The Newport Beach-based office owner said it signed Irvine-based Digital Map Products Inc. to a 22,000-square-foot lease at University Research Park, the 185-acre park next to the University of California-Irvine whose largest tenant, chipmaker Broadcom, is preparing to move to a new campus elsewhere in the city.
Digital Map is a provider of what it calls “geospatial mapping technology.” Its cloud-based location and mapping products are used by a variety of businesses—including real estate-related firms, such as Redfin Corp., Realtor.com and CoStar Group Inc.—plus government organizations and consumers.
The company says it has about 350,000 users and that it’s a content provider to four of the six largest real estate websites, two of the top three multiple listing service companies, the two largest gas and electric utility companies, and several large commercial real estate brokerages and homebuilders.
Digital Map’s products get nearly 4 billion server hits a month, primarily through the large corporate users that use its content, founder and Chief Executive Jim Skurzynski said last week. It also sells a branded software product called LandVision.
Skurzynski founded Digital Map in 2000 with a $2.5 million investment.
The company doesn’t disclose sales, but Skurzynski said it’s profitable and has seen “consistent year-over-year growth of 20%.” It employs about 100 locally.
The move to University Research Park caps a busy year for Digital Map. In September, it announced a $36.3 million investment by Silversmith Capital Partners, a Boston-based growth equity firm.
The funding, described as “a management recapitalization,” allowed Skurzynski to buy out some of the company’s angel investors and another venture capital firm that invested in the company in 2005, he said.
Last month, Digital Map announced the buy of a Canadian firm with a similar product set, Ontario-based DMTI Spatial, on undisclosed terms. DMTI has about 30 employees.
The acquisition of Canada’s largest source of geolocation data expands Digital Map’s footprint to all of North America, the company said at the time the deal was struck.
More acquisitions are possible, as is a potential sale of the company, Skurzynski said. A buyer would likely be a location-technology software firm rather than a large user that would want to bring the company’s technology in-house, he said.
With the buy of DMTI and other deals planned to further grow the company, Skurzynski said he’s tweaking his role at Digital Map to “be more on the front line,” which will likely mean more time on the road.
Day-to-day operations are being handled more by Chief Financial Officer Tom Patterson, with Chief Technology Officer Geoff Wade overseeing innovations to the company’s products, Skurzynski said last week.
Toshiba Neighbor
The new offices in Irvine are a step up in size for Digital Map. Its current headquarters near John Wayne Airport run about 11,000 square feet, according to CoStar data.
“We were busting at the seams” at the current location, a building on Von Karman Avenue that’s slated to be razed next year for a residential development, Skurzynski said.
In addition to a bigger and more efficient office, the move next to UCI should “give us better access to technical talent,” Skurzynski said.
It will move into the new URP space at 5201 California Ave. in the late fall.
The building Digital Map is moving into is one of the first offices to be vacated by Broadcom at URP, which totals 36 buildings and 2.2 million square feet.
Broadcom—the largest office tenant in Orange County—had been occupying space at 11 buildings at the business park.
The mix of two-, three- and four-story offices total about 836,000 square feet and will be vacated and available for lease by next June, according to Irvine Co. marketing materials.
Broadcom has agreed to move out of two buildings ahead of schedule, which will allow Digital Map and one other recently signed tenant, Toshiba America Inc., to move in before the year is up.
Toshiba is leasing 96,000 square feet at URP after signing a lease in March.
Broadcom is moving its local operations to a new campus nearing completion at Great Park Neighborhoods in Irvine, where it is expected to occupy 640,000 square feet.
The Great Park Neighborhoods office campus is owned by Broadcom, but the buildings will be sold to Aliso Viejo-based FivePoint Communities Inc. in the next month or two, according to regulatory filings.
Irvine Co. officials are expressing confidence that the region’s vast base of technology firms can fill the gap left by Broadcom at URP.
“Broadcom’s plans to move from University Research Park next year has created excellent opportunities for the next generation of innovators,” said Steve Case, executive vice president of Irvine Co.’s office division, in a statement.
“We are proud to have had a unique vantage point from which to witness the history of software engineering in Orange County, and with companies like Digital Map Products, we continue to be enthused by the growing ecosystem of technology companies in Orange County,” Case said.
