A Chicago-area developer is adding 40,000 square feet of retail space to an office park in Plantation and is preparing to renovate ’70s-vintage buildings there.
Northbrook, Illinois-based Torbun Partners recently obtained city approval for its plans to renovate buildings at the property, long occupied by Motorola Solutions Inc., also based in the Chicago area.
Torbun paid $38.1 million in October 2013
for the office park formerly known as the Motorola Solutions campus and now called Plantation Pointe Office Park.
The office park has 850,000 square feet of outdated space built in the early 1970s.
Michael Burns of Torburn Partners told the Sun-Sentinel: “The buildings have good bones and great infrastructure. It just simply needed an injection — a new plan and vision.”
Motorola once occupied all of the buildings at the Plantation office park and employed a work force of 5,000 there, much bigger than its work force of 1,200 now. The head count subsequently shrank amid company-wide downsizing at Motorola.
After Torburn bought the office park in 2013, the developer negotiated a lease agreement with Motorola for about 280,000 square feet.
Torburn subsequently leased the rest of the 850,000 square feet to entertainment technology developer Magic Leap and health care company Amsurg Corporation.
In addition, Baptist Health South Florida is building a 15,000-square-foot endoscopy facility at the office park.
Chipotle, Starbucks and Walgreens are among the retail tenants expected to set up shop at Plantation Pointe Office Park.
In August, Torburn obtained a $43 million loan secured by the 77-acre office park at 8000 West Sunrise Boulevard. The lender is Chicago-based PrivateBank and Trust Company. [Sun-Sentinel] — Mike Seemuth