Brandywine Realty Trust is reworking the vision for its North Austin mixed-use campus Uptown ATX as longtime tenant IBM prepares to exit and the city’s office market continues to soften.
The Philadelphia-based firm was going to redevelop the campus, but is now planning to focus on renovations, CEO Jerry Sweeney said on the firm’s Oct. 23 earnings call, the Austin Business Journal reported.
IBM will vacate its 66-acre campus at 11501 Burnet Road — across from The Domain — in mid-2027, Sweeney said. That’s when the next development phase of Uptown ATX is slated to begin. Instead of building new towers, Brandywine will focus on upgrading buildings 902, 904 and 906, totaling roughly 500,000 square feet. Brandywine expects to begin delivering renovated space in early 2027.
While Sweeney didn’t explicitly rule out future demolition, the pivot reflects the reality of a sluggish office market. Vacancy rates remain high and few tenants are seeking large new footprints. Other developers across Austin have shelved ground-up projects and are repositioning existing assets instead. Average office rents in the Central Business District hit $64.29 per square foot in the third quarter, compared with $42.23 in North Austin, according to CBRE.
Brandywine tested the market this spring when it listed 1 million square feet of Austin office assets. A company executive said the listings were aimed at gauging pricing, not pulling back from Austin.
Uptown ATX remains one of the region’s largest mixed-use projects, envisioned as Austin’s “second downtown.” So far, Brandywine has completed the 348,000-square-foot One Uptown office tower and the 341-unit Solaris House apartment building on the site’s southern end.
One Uptown is showing momentum despite broader leasing headwinds. Nvidia Corp. and cybersecurity firm Axonius Inc. together occupy about 109,000 square feet, and Brandywine is in talks to fill another 75,000 square feet that would bring the building to roughly 60 percent leased. Nvidia also holds expansion rights, executives said. Solaris House, meanwhile, is 99 percent leased after heavy concessions during its first year, and renewal rents are up 8 percent.
IBM’s relocation plans remain murky. A previous 320,000-square-foot pre-lease with Houston-based Hines fell through, but the company snagged Meta’s space at the Domain last year. Regardless, its exit gives Brandywine both a vacancy challenge and an opportunity to reset Uptown ATX’s next chapter.
— Eric Weilbacher
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