When Cruzan's Pete Spencer and Dennis Cruzan got a tour of Arris' San Diego campus, they were “absolutely blown away.” Where else in the area could you find an office campus on 25 developable acres?

And so, Cruzan, in a JV with Invesco Advisors, shelled out $85.5M for the 317k SF, two-building office campus. But Pete tells us it's about much more than two office buildings. The property gives the firm a 25-acre campus that could allow Cruzan to develop an additional 300k SF of office. Pete says their initial vision has less to do with adding office space and more to do with the environment: An amenitized office campus geared toward the 25K to 100K SF tenant. “We want to provide the large tech campus experience for the smaller tenants,” Pete says.

The property at 6429 and 6450 Sequence Dr in Sorrento Mesa has been leased-back in part to Arris Group, with Cruzan taking on 110k SF of empty office space. The Atlanta-based IT and cable equipment maker—which bought Motorola Home from Google for $2.2B in 2013—is taking the full 200k SF building as its San Diego operations HQ. Cruzan will proceed with entitlement documents on the development pads to get it ready for a build-to-suit or even a spec office project of up to 300k SF (although Pete says it will be more likely in the 100k to 120k SF range). CBRE's Louay Alsadek, Justin Parsonnet, Hunter Rowe, Chris Pascale, Mike Hoeck, Mark McGovern and Scott Peterson brokered the sale.

Pete says Cruzan envisions an environment that contains a fitness center, a cafe and plenty of outdoor spaces for recreation. The company also is looking to add a 300-seat outdoor amphitheater, similar to what he says Apple provides for its employees at its Cupertino campus. “San Diego for the last 35 to 40 years turned its back on what makes the city really great, which is the climate,” Pete says, adding that the revitalized Sequence Drive project will look to capitalize on that.