HSL Buys Former Texas Instruments Campus for Vision

Sale price: below market. The vision: priceless.

Texas Instruments (TI) of Dallas, TX (NYSE:TXN) sold the 253,393-square-foot campus at 6730 S Tucson Blvd. in Tucson to HSL Properties of Tucson (Humberto Lopez). The property has been vacant since 2008, when TI moved into the former AOL buildings at the Williams Center, 5401 and 5421 E Williams Blvd. in Tucson, two blocks from Tucson International Airport.

HSL is well known throughout the Southwest for premier multi-family apartment communities, but has also been known to make divestitures into office and retail buildings, shopping malls, a golf course and hotels on occasions. This is their first venture into the industrial market that we found.

We spoke with Omar Mireles, Vice-President of HSL, who told us they had been looking at the property for a few years before making the decision to proceed. “HSL has a vision that includes job creation for this property,” Mireles told us. Bill Divito, First Vice-President and Jesse Blum, Associate, of CBRE in Tucson handled the purchase for HSL and have been retained to market the property for sale or for lease, in whole or in part.

Divito reaffirmed Mireles’ statement, “We have a vision to bring jobs back to this property, but it would be premature to discuss any company names we are talking to. The 17.3 acre campus, one full city block, is fully secured by a wrought iron fence. The six-building campus includes a two-story cafeteria, with mountain views that overlooks a landscaped courtyard in the center, known as the Tom Brown Center.” Texas Instrument occupied the campus after it acquired Burr-Brown Research Corporation in 2000 for $7.6 billion, the company founded by Page Burr and Tom Brown who broke ground at this location in the 1960s.

“The property has 7-megawatts power, 121,000-tons of chiller system, 587-parking spaces and a basketball court,” Divito said. “It has clean rooms, administrative office, labs, conference center, auditorium seating, and warehouse space. The only equivalent campuses in town with that kind of infrastructure are Honeywell and IBM. We are very excited with the property’s potential.” At one time there were as many as 1,400 employees working at this location, and HSL and Divito have the vision to bring the property back, complete with jobs. The property has been left as it was in September 2008, when last occupied, so there are some repairs needed to bring it back.

For more information, contact Divito at (520) 321-3339 or Blum at (520) 321-3335.

[ismember]Sale date: $3.75 million. Sale Date: 9/16/2013. $750,000 down payment, balance conventional financing by Alliance Bank of Arizona.[/ismember]