Construction on a major office project by Irvine Company is well underway at Sunnyvale’s North Mary and Almanor Avenues. The 42-acre site is just off the junction between Highway 101 and State Route 237, and will deliver 11 new office buildings along with an amenity building and parking structures once complete. The 1.3 million square feet of office space will be within the many three and four-story buildings woven throughout the development known as Pathline Park, inspired by the wooded natural setting.
Following groundbreaking in 2018, three of the office buildings along with the amenity building should be complete by this October; with two more buildings expected to finish by next September and yet another by fall of 2021. The project has mostly been developed on a speculative basis, however Synopsys and Proofpoint have pre-leased two of the buildings.
“We feel good about where the market is in terms of that momentum, and there really aren’t many opportunities in the market for a place at this size, so we feel we can capture that activity,” said Todd Hedrick, Regional Vice President, Irvine Company.
The name Pathline Park refers to a wide, landscaped path that connects the whole development and features outdoor seating areas, ample landscaping and a host of mature trees. Hedrick said that keeping the trees, many of them mature Redwoods and 40-year old Olive trees, will imbue the development with a feeling of having been there a long time.
Individual tenants may add their own amenity spaces, but a 20,000-square-foot dedicated amenity building is designed to serve the whole park with a full-service cafe staffed with baristas, several food stations, a fitness room and yoga studio. The building is situated in a central area to serve as a gathering hub.
“For us the amenity piece is about making sure that the incoming tenants and their employees have all the amenities they need,” explained Hedrick. “When you’re competing against Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon to get all the talent they need, these are the things they have to offer their employees.”
In addition to being situated near major roadways, the project is also located 1.5 miles from the Sunnyvale Caltrain station and 2.8 miles from the Caltrain station in Mountain View. As the buildings become occupied, a shuttle will make a number of stops throughout Pathline Park, connecting employees with downtown. Still there are several parking structures as well as a small amount of surface parking.
Pathline Park is set to achieve LEED Gold certification. Irvine is considering doing a solar power set-up similar to one at its Santa Clara Square where the solar power connects to battery storage in order to provide power at a less expensive rate during high peak periods and then charging the battery during low peak. However, the plans don’t currently indicate the solar panels.
Regarding building design, several have balconies that jut out from mostly glass facades. The interiors are marked by a “column-free environment” with large floor areas up to 40,000 square feet to please tech companies that seek open spaces for collaboration and work space density. The spaces also feature floor to ceiling wrap-around windows to provide continuous natural daylight. The first floors have 16-foot ceilings to allow for the possibility of R&D spaces. Hedrick anticipates interest from big tech users as well as start-up and medical device companies.
The vision for Pathline Park had originally called for about double the number of buildings that are actually slated to be built. The project falls within the Peery Park Specific Plan area, and Irvine was allocated 1.5 million square feet of the plan’s development totals. The City had pushed for fewer, larger buildings to accommodate companies that want larger floor plans.