Novell campus has space for lease

PROVO — Novell is looking for companies to fill surplus space in three buildings on its Provo campus.

The software company has signed a deal with two real estate firms to conduct a national search for technology companies that might be attracted to the high-tech campus.

Buildings E and F are available for sale or lease. Building A is expected to be available for lease only.

"Utah remains strategic to Novell's operations and is our largest facility worldwide," said John Hankey, Novell's vice president of real estate, in a prepared statement. "The excess space we are offering reflects our ongoing efforts to maximize the value of our assets."

About 1,800 of Novell's 4,800 employees work in Provo, company spokesman Kevan Barney said. The company's headquarters are in Massachusetts.

Last week, Novell announced that restructuring this year could cost $45 million, in large part because of severance packages that are a part of job cuts announced in December.

The company has not said how many jobs it will cut. Some cuts were made in the first quarter and the rest will be spread over the next three quarters, but the impact in Provo appears minimal.

"That Provo employment number has been a pretty static number the last couple of years," Barney said. "We're not planning on that number changing now."

Novell's campus includes eight buildings and about 900,000 square feet. The two buildings for sale have 200,000 square feet.

"We'll keep the first floor of one of those," Barney said. "We'll either keep it if we lease the buildings or, if we sell them, lease back that space."

Only the second floor in Building A is for lease because the first floor is home to the Open-source Technology Center, an incubator for local technology business startups.

"It's good for us to make use of that (excess) space, either to lease it out or sell it," Barney said, "and it's better for the local economy because vacancy rates are low in the county. It could help someone who needs a lot of space and be a boost to the local economy."

The three buildings have abundant fiber optics and cabling and are equipped with back-up generators.

A broker with the Utah County office of Commerce CRG, which will market the buildings with the global real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield, said the space is unusual.