Presidio Bay Nails $137M Deal for Menlo Park Federal Campus

Presidio Bay Ventures has sealed the deal for a 17.4-acre office and research campus in Menlo Park from Uncle Sam at $137 million.

An affiliate of the San Francisco-based developer won a sealed bid auction to buy the former U.S. Geological Survey campus at 345 Middlefield Road, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported, citing an announcement by the U.S. General Services Administration.

The deal for the 412,700-square-foot campus works out to $332 per square foot. Presidio Bay has 90 days to pony up the cash.

Presidio had submitted the highest bid, followed by a $120 million offer by City Ventures, based in Irvine, and a $90 million bid from an affiliate of Starwood Capital Group, co-founded by billionaire and hotelier Barry Sternlicht.

Bids in the blind auction, which opened on April 15, started at $85 million.

The Geological Survey finished relocating to Moffett Field in Mountain View last year. The GSA tried to auction off the Menlo Park campus in 2022 for $120 million, but received no bids.

The 17.4-acre Rockaway Grove campus has 17 office, research and laboratory buildings built between 1953 and 1995, with a combined 412,700 square feet, according to the GSA.

The site comes with a vacant cafe and credit union, and a childcare center occupied by GeoKids, an early childhood development facility. Geokids’ lease expires on Aug. 31 and was to be extended for another year, according to the GSA.

What Presidio Bay wants to do with the campus when it closes the deal isn’t clear.

The campus is a mile away from Springline, a $245 million urban office village developed by Presidio Bay on 6.4 acres at 1300-1302 El Camino Real and 550 Oak Grove Avenue in downtown Menlo Park.

Two years ago, Presidio Bay Ventures bought an 11-story, 157,000-square foot office building at 60 Spear Street for $41 million, or $261 per square foot, helping to reset a market impacted by fleeing investors.

Last month, the GSA published a list of more than 440 government buildings across the U.S. it wanted to sell, including two office properties in San Francisco. But the list was rescinded after backlash from members of Congress, with the GSA to take a more methodical approach to offloading real estate, according to the Chronicle.

— Dana Bartholomew