Samsung supplier has new home
Company moving to RiverSouth tower
Samsung supplier Tokyo Electron has a new home in Austin, after announcing plans to sell its 107-acre Southeast Austin campus late last year.
Tokyo Electron, which is based in Japan but considers Austin its North American headquarters, supplies customers with equipment used to manufacture semiconductors and other electronics.
The company has called an Austin campus on Grove Boulevard off of East Riverside Drive home for several decades, and it employs about 450 people in Central Texas, but Tokyo Electron announced in October it would be looking for new locations for its headquarters and research and development facilities.
Now, the company has confirmed it will soon be the newest tenant of RiverSouth, a 15-story mixed-use tower on South First Street. The company’s headquarters will take up about 98,800 square feet of space of the 372,000square-foot building, which first opened to tenants in 2022 and is just south of Lady Bird Lake.
In a statement Tuesday, Rick Turner, executive vice president, CFO and administration general manager at Tokyo Electron, confirmed to the AmericanStatesman the company had signed a new lease.
“For 30 years, Tokyo Electron’s North American headquarters has been located in southeast Austin. We can confirm that we have signed a lease at RiverSouth and we are excited to enhance and grow our presence in new spaces in Austin for decades to come. We are enthusiastic about what lies ahead for our employees, stakeholders and customers.”
The company’s customers include large semiconductor manufacturers such as Samsung, which has had an existing Austin facility since 1997 and is building out a $17 billion facility in Taylor, northeast of Austin.
The new location comes as Tokyo Electron comes as the United States semiconductor industry is expected to see unprecedented growth as companies wait to hear if they will receive funding from the Chips and Science Act, legislation passed in 2022 designed to boost domestic chip manufacturing.
Central Texas is expected to see big benefits from the legislation, which has $52 billion available for companies that manufacture computer chips, billions more in tax credits to incentivize chip manufacturing, and tens of billions of dollars to fund scientific research and development of other U.S. technologies.
In October, Jason Jowers, the company’s vice president of support services told the American-Statesman Tokyo Electron planned to continue growing operations in Central Texas, despite the sale.
At the time, Jowers told the American-Statesman that the company was in negotiations for new locations for its headquarters, research and development and training locations in Austin, as well as a new field office designed to support Samsung’s Taylor facility.
What we know about the sale
Tokyo Electron did not provide an update on any potential buyers for its Southeast Austin campus. In October, Jowers told the American-Statesman there was “significant interest” in the property, which is being sold as is.
The company’s Southeast Austin campus includes a 142,000-square-foot main office and a 47,800-square-foot research and development facility, which sit on 46.8 acres and are connected by an enclosed walkway. The property also has 60.3 acres of raw land.
CBRE, which is marketing the property, said in a brochure that the land and campus could be bought separately or as a package deal. The brochure also did not list any pricing but said the property would be 100% leased to Tokyo Electron for one year upon a sale.
The site is zoned for flexible mixeduse, which would allow the property to have high-density multifamily, office, general commercial and other complementary uses, CBRE said in October.