SiliconBeat

A 41-acre plot of land in north San Jose described as one of the few relatively large pieces of undeveloped land left in Silicon Valley  is reportedly on the verge of being forfeited by Rockefeller Center owner Tishman Speyer Properties as it defaults on an $86.2 million loan from Bank of America used to buy the site, according to a Bloomberg News report citing people Read the rest of this entry »

The head analyst of commercial mortgages at Deutsche Bank Securities told Reuters today that commercial real estate markets in the U.S. cities could fall as much as 50 percent from their peak in 2007 and that they probably won’t recover until 2017.

“The froth is still working itself out,” said Read the rest of this entry »

Tivo re-negotiated the lease for its 127,124-square-foot headquarters it leases in the Alviso neighborhood in San Jose at 2160 and 2190 Gold Street from the Bixby Technology Center, getting a 23 percent decrease in its rent beginning next February and extending the term for an additional seven years, according to a filing the company made Monday.

The rent roll-back begins Read the rest of this entry »

Lam Research has decided it won’t occupy one of two new buildings in Livermore that it agreed to lease from BNP Paribas in December 2007. As of the end of 2008, Lam had $170.2 million in restricted cash and short-term investments set aside as collateral required under the lease agreements, according to the company’s May 8 quarterly financial filing with the SEC.

Lam, which is also in the process of laying off Read the rest of this entry »

It is said that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but free rent? That appears to be what Smart Modular Technologies will get when it moves its executive offices from Fremont to space it recently leased in Newark at 39870 Eureka Drive. The seven-year deal is set to begin May 1, according to a filing with the SEC today.

The maker of chips used for data storage, which has gone through two rounds of layoffs in the last six months, seems to be getting a sweet deal, even without Read the rest of this entry »

MIPS Technologies will pay no rent during the first six months of a seven-year lease it signed Feb. 27 with AMB Property for 36,013 square feet of R&D space at 955 E. Arques in Sunnyvale, according to the lease, which begins June 1.

In the seventh month of the lease, MIPS will begin paying $52,281.85 per month for the space, or $1.45 per square foot per month, with three percent annual increases thereafter.

Valley Fair’s owner, Westfield Group — the world’s biggest shopping-center owner by market value — is set to offer 276 million shares at $10.50 each, 13 percent below where they ended in trading on the Australian stock exchange Monday, in an effort to pay down its debt, according to a story by Bloomberg News.

Sales dropped 6.8 percent in the final quarter of 2008 at specialty stores in U.S. malls operated by Westfield compared with the year-earlier period, Bloomberg reported. Occupancy at Westfield’s U.S. malls fell to Read the rest of this entry »

Commercial property owners in Silicon Valley are facing their most inhospitable environment in two decades, according to a press release put out by Cornish & Carey Capital, the financing arm of the Santa Clara-based commercial real estate broker that is touting the launch of a new division specializing in “distressed assets.”

”For the first time since the 1980’s, owners are Read the rest of this entry »

One silver lining of the current downturn, at least as far as businesses leasing space goes,  is that rents are getting cheaper.

Vivus, the Mountain View pharmaceutical company, extended the lease it signed two years ago on its corporate headquarters at 1172 Castro Street and is getting the rent lowered from $1.85 per square foot to $1.64, lowering the current monthly payment from $26,338 to $23,349 starting Aug. 1 and expiring July 31, 2011, according to a filing the company made Thursday, and compared to the original lease.

Drug maker Gilead Sciences agreed to buy a 163,000-square-foot office building (pictured here) at 301 Velocity Way in Foster City from Electronics For Imaging, along with 30 acres of land designed to accommodate up to an additional 542,000 square feet of office space for $137.5 million, according to a regulatory filing Thursday.

The property borders Read the rest of this entry »