Staff Reports
Silicon Hills Campus LLC — the massive, former 3M site in Four Points — could go to foreclosure auction in Travis County on May 4.
The lender for the 1.3-million-square-foot World Class Holdings entity, canceled the foreclosure sale scheduled for April 6, according to Austin Business Journal
The campus at 6801 River Place Blvd. off of RM 2222 was occupied by the 3M multinational conglomerate before 3M moved into a new facility in Austin in 2019.
Silicon Hills Campus LLC, a subsidiary of Nate Paul’s World Class, defaulted on its $64 million note for the campus in August 2019, shortly after 3M’s lease back ended. There has been some exterior painting and lighting added since but otherwise the property has been vacant since 3M left.
Austin Business Journal reported that in November, a bankruptcy judge lifted a stay that had prevented Tuebor REIT Sub LLC (the lender that originally foreclosed on the campus) from selling the property. Additionally then, Travis County COVID-19 safety guidelines kept a foreclosure sale from proceeding in January.
Gov. Greg Abbott has since lifted most COVID-19 safety protocols for Texas which allows for foreclosure sales to proceed in Travis County.
ABJ reports that Tuebor REIT sold the $64 million Silicon Hills Campus note in early 2021 to a “mysterious Delaware-based entity called ATX Debt Fund 1 LLC,” according to a transfer recorded Jan. 27 in Travis County. ATX Debt Fund 1 LLC is also listed as the lender in the March 11 foreclosure notice filed in Travis County, ABJ stated.
3M site history
In 1988, 3M employees started to fill the Four Points campus. Its current 11 buildings were offices, laboratories, an innovation center, and an on-site co-generation utility plant that powered the 3M campus.
The 115-year-old 3M based in Minnesota has many products including Post It notes and Scotch Guard to cell phone parts, fiber optics and touch screen hardware.
In early 2018 — some 30 years after 3M arrived on the campus — World Class completed the purchase of 3M’s 156-acre site. 3M continued to occupy the site until April 2019.
Some 800 3M employees including engineers, and research and development, marketing, and supply chain positions moved from the Four Points campus to a new, 272,000-square-foot building off Parmer Lane in the Tech Ridge area of Northeast Austin.
The main building complex is the largest contiguous office building in Austin, according to Paul in an earlier report by Four Points News. The site also has nature trails and walking paths.
Now the Four Points site is part of more than 20 World Class bankruptcy cases that have been filed in federal court in Austin, ABJ reports. And in December World Class “lost a cluster of properties to a subsidiary of Stonelake Capital Partners after a tumultuous foreclosure sale,” ABJ reported.
Additionally federal authorities raided the World Class offices in August 2019.