Discovery Business Campus: From Industrial Campus to Mixed-use ​Business Park

​By: Alison Melnychenko, owner of Scottsdale, Arizona-based Word Games - Fall 2016

Discovery Business Campus is a 1.9 million-square-foot mixed-use, multitenant business park in Tempe, Arizona. Internationally acclaimed sculptor Ilan Averbuch was commissioned to create custom works of art that are located throughout the campus.
Photos courtesy of Wentworth Property Company

​A nearly vacant semiconductor campus is transformed into a vibrant mixed-use business park that is attracting new users to its Tempe, Arizona, submarket.
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WHAT HAPPENS WHEN a developer decides to take a chance and purchase a half-vacant, dilapidated semiconductor campus in an unproven location while the market is still heavily impacted by the recession? Wentworth Property Company (WPC), along with financial partner Northwood Investors, took that opportunity to transform the property into a modern, multitenant mixed-use business campus.

In June 2010, WPC first toured the former Motorola/Freescale Semiconductor campus, which consisted of four industrial buildings totaling about 770,000 square feet (451,000 square feet of which were occupied) and three ancillary buildings totaling 50,000 square feet. On paper, this property looked like a clear “no.” Nothing about it — its outdated design, aging infrastructure and unknown demand in the submarket — seemed to make sense.
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But Jim Wentworth Jr., principal with WPC, saw a blank canvas and an opportunity.  He recognized the value of the property’s location in Tempe, Arizona, adjacent to the Loop 101 freeway at a full-diamond interchange, as well as its size (136 acres) and proximity to a large, educated workforce. Wentworth knew that translated to three of the top “wish list” items for a corporate user: access, parking and labor. WPC committed to utilizing the existing buildings, believing that the structures could be redeveloped into modern office space. Staying true to that belief, WPC and Northwood purchased the property in June 2011, exactly 12 months after that first property tour, and immediately renamed the project Discovery Business Campus.

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