Intuitive Surgical broadens buying binge in Sunnyvale
SUNNYVALE >> Intuitive Surgical has widened its purchases of Sunnyvale properties, a five-year shopping spree that now is well over $100 million.
The maker of a cutting-edge surgical robot paid slightly less than $5.2 million for a building on Kifer Road, according to documents filed on Jan. 31 with the Santa Clara County Recorder’s Office.
Sunnyvale-based Intuitive Surgical accomplished the purchase through an all-cash transaction, the public property records show.
The building that the medical technology company bought totals 9,600 square feet. Most likely, however, Intuitive Surgical’s primary interest is focused on the 0.6 acres beneath the building.
The sellers of the 927 Kifer property were family trusts headed up by Randall Cowherd and Elizabeth Cowherd, according to the public documents.
Over a five-year period that started in January 2017, Intuitive Surgical has spent at least $114.3 million purchasing numerous properties in a remarkable shopping spree that has greatly widened the company’s footprint near its current headquarters.
The company is seeking ways to assure it can secure enough elbow room in Sunnyvale for future expansion efforts.
Intuitive Surgical’s core technology, called Da Vinci, which Dun & Bradstreet describes as “advanced surgical equipment” with an “artistic flair,” has an impressive pedigree.
The Da Vinci system was born at legendary SRI International, originally the Stanford Research Institute. The Da Vinci robots also have connections with NASA-AMES and the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA).
The just-bought Sunnyvale property is just one of several sites that Intuitive Surgical has assembled next to and near its existing headquarters at 1020 Kifer Road.
The parcel also is close to the site of a huge new office complex that Intuitive Surgical plans to develop in Sunnyvale.
Intuitive Surgical has proposed the development of a two-building office and research tech hub that would total about 1.21 million square feet and sprout on both sides of Kifer Road.
The development is envisioned as a unified campus with addresses of 932, 945, 950 and 955 Kifer Road.
“The new campus would allow us to stay in Sunnyvale, establish a new headquarters and build a state-of-the-art research, development and manufacturing facility,” Blake Reinhardt, vice president of construction with Intuitive Surgical, told the Sunnyvale Planning Commission in August 2021.
The company launched the property purchases and the campus development plans as a way to assure its presence in Silicon Valley on a long-term basis.
“Silicon Valley is the intersection of medicine and technology,” Gary Guthart, chief executive officer with Intuitive Surgical, said during an interview with this news organization in July 2020. “We are deeply rooted in the soil of Silicon Valley.”