Mystery buyer: EBay, Google or Apple?

'Mystery buyer' wants StorageTek site for $60 million

By John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 21, 2007 at 12:05 a.m.
Updated November 21, 2007 at 1:43 p.m.

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Storage Technology Corp. once was headquartered at the 440-acre campus in Louisville. Sun Microsystems bought the company in 2005.

A mystery buyer has agreed to pay $60 million for the 440-acre campus in Louisville that formerly served as the headquarters for Storage Technology, sources have told the Rocky Mountain News.

Several commercial real estate brokers have speculated that the buyer could be Google, eBay or even Apple, although everyone cautioned they are only speculating.

Jim Mulligan, a real estate lawyer with Fairfield and Woods, confirmed Tuesday that he is representing a potential buyer but declined to reveal the buyer's identity.

"We represent an interested party that has it under an option to buy it, and they are performing their due diligence," Mulligan said.

"They're not a buyer until they close on it," he added. "As far as any other speculation, I have no comment."

Fuller and Co. broker Stew Mosko, who is co-listing the land with Jones Lang LaSalle, said last week that neither he nor anyone on the sales team knows the identify of the buyer.

California-based Sun Microsystems bought StorageTek in 2005 and is selling the land.

Kristi Rawlinson, a Sun spokeswoman, confirmed in an e-mail that the land is under contract, but said the terms of the agreement and the buyer are confidential.

"However, we can can confirm that the buyer intends to use the property for phased Class A office development and ancillary commercial uses," Rawlinson wrote in the e-mail.

"Due diligence is proceeding accordingly, and we are optimistic the sale will close in the coming months."

Sun intends to relocate about 700 employees to its nearby Broomfield campus by December 2008, she said.

Sources said the buyer would like to buy the land before the end of the year.

One source said the deal could represent the biggest economic coup for the Denver area in years.

Gov. Bill Ritter, through spokesman Evan Dryer, declined to comment.

If a company like Google or eBay bought the property, it probably would build a giant office campus similar to the one Sun built when it opened its Broomfield office during the high-tech boom of the late 1990s.

It's unlikely a company would move its headquarters to the site, however.

Larry Simpson, a principal of Fuller Towne & Country, said he also has heard that a giant company is buying the land.

"We would probably open an office up there," he said. "It would mean hundreds, if not thousands, of new jobs."

David Hart, a broker with CB Richard Ellis, said his top two choices are eBay and Google.

"About three years ago, eBay had a letter of intent to buy the Views (office buildings and more than 50 acres of land formerly owned by Level 3), but then its stock price took a dip and it backed off," he said.

Hart noted that David Rad- cliffe, a former Trammell Crow broker in Denver, now is a vice president of real estate at Google.

Radcliffe, who has an MBA from the University of Denver, was on vacation Tuesday and didn't respond to a message on his voice mail.

"It wouldn't take him very much due diligence to know what a spectacular opportunity that site is," Hart said.

Don Dunshee, president of the Broomfield Economic Development Corp., said a $60 million price tag is too rich for a developer to pay.

Realistically, a developer couldn't even start to raze the 1.7 million square feet of buildings on the site until about 2010, he said.

Broker Hart said he thinks the buyer probably is from California, because the $60 million price would look like a bargain for the site, which is 25 minutes from Denver International Airport and downtown, and 10 or 15 minutes from Boulder.

"I don't see a developer paying that kind of money with plans for a spec office park that would be out there competing with Interlocken and Westmoor," Hart said.

It makes more sense for a company to use the existing buildings as needed, while it builds a new campus, he and others said.

Louisville Mayor Charles "Chuck" Sisk said he doesn't know the identity of the buyer.

"What I would like to see is a Fortune 500 company come out to Louisville and open an office campus, with some retail and open space, parks and trail connections," Sisk said.

"Certainly, an R&D campus would really blend in out there. I would like to see a company coming from outside of Colorado, because I'm not looking to steal a company from another city in Colorado."

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