Google gobbles up Sunnyvale building that housed early operation of Atari

SUNNYVALE » Google has bought a big office building in Sunnyvale that four decades ago was occupied by an early operation of video game pioneer Atari, a new property deal that widens Google’s holdings in Silicon Valley.

The tech titan bought a building near Borregas Avenue and West Java Drive in a part of northern Sunnyvale where Google has been busy acquiring properties that are ripe for modern new development projects.

Google paid $58.1 million for the building at 1272 Borregas Ave., according to Santa Clara County property records. Google spokesman Michael Appel confirmed the purchase but declined to elaborate beyond what was available in the public documents.

The company paid cash for the building, documents filed June 28 show.

The building was constructed in 1978 and is two stories high and is located in the Moffett Park area of Sunnyvale.

The building once accommodated an Atari engineering division, according to the Atari I/O Blog, which posts information about the history of Atari.

“In Moffett Park, a partition of land in Sunnyvale carved out between Caribbean Drive and Highway 237, lay the remains of what

was once home to boundless imagination, creativity, and wonder,” the blog stated. “Once upon a time, this was home to the most magical company on Earth. This was the Kingdom of Atari.”

Now one of the kingdoms of Google’s expanding real estate empire in

Silicon Valley is emerging in the old Atari enclaves in Sunnyvale.

Mountain View-based Google has already been an active buyer of property in Sunnyvale and has scooped up dozens of parcels in the Silicon Valley hub in recent years.

Over a stretch that began in mid-2017 and ending in late 2018, Google had spent at least $1.35 billion buying numerous properties in northern Sunnyvale

alone. The most recent deal on Borregas takes the total to a new pinnacle of $1.4 billion.

As is the case with numerous buildings in north Sunnyvale, the old Atari building occupies a relatively large lot. The 1272 Borregas parcel totals 5.2 acres, according to a listing brochure.

In this instance, some development scenarios might make it possible to replace the existing building

with a modern office building of 157,000 square feet, or even as much as 224,000 square feet. The existing building totals 96,000 square feet.

In December 2017, an early indicator emerged that could provide clues about what Google might envision for at least a section of northern Sunnyvale.

Google has filed a proposal with Sunnyvale city officials for a striking twobuilding

campus of 1.04 million square feet, called Caribbean, that would be large enough to accommodate 4,500 Google workers.

The modern campus that Google proposed in late 2017 would sprout on parcels that currently contain 13 single-story buildings. Together these old buildings now total 802,000 square feet and contain primarily office, industrial, research, light manufacturing, and lab operations.

The 13 buildings are on parcels that would lend themselves to much higher densities.

“The proposed project will enhance the area by replacing a collection of aging, low-density structures with two new buildings and a redesigned site,” Google stated in planning documents submitted to Sunnyvale officials.