Madison Plans to Split 31-Acre Industrial Fremont Campus

Madison Capital may be poised to tack on to its $260 million property in Fremont, with a vacant parcel ripe for redevelopment.

The New York-based investor bought the 31-acre research campus occupied by Seagate Technology Holdings in May at 47488 Kato Road, and has filed plans to split into two separate lots, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

Seagate, based in Ireland, sold the property to Madison in a leaseback deal and now occupies a 575,000-square-foot research and development building. It initially sought $300 million.

That leaves an 11-acre undeveloped plot of land on the east side.

Madison proposed dividing the entire site, but didn’t say how it would apportion both parcels, or what it plans to do with the undeveloped lot, according to the Business Times.

The Seagate campus is zoned for tech industrial, which allows uses like R&D.

Fremont has 18.9 million square feet of research and development buildings, with a 4.1 percent vacancy rate in the second quarter, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

The May deal allowed Seagate to lease the campus back for 10 years with an option to extend it for 20 more years.

The move came after the Dublin-based hard drive maker announced its plans last fall to cut its global workforce by nearly 8 percent.

The Fremont campus next to I-880 was built in 2010 for $300 million and once served as a Solyndra factory for solar arrays. It declared bankruptcy in 2011.

In 2013, Seagate bought the campus for $90.3 million, then renovated it for $200 million more.

— Dana Bartholomew