Brandywine Realty Trust is teeing up a $31 million overhaul of a former IBM building inside its 66-acre Uptown ATX campus in north Austin, just as the tech giant prepares to vacate next year. The work centers on one six-story tower, with a new lobby, refreshed bathrooms, and added amenities designed to keep the space competitive in a softer leasing market. It is also a clear move in Brandywine’s broader push to shift the campus from an office-heavy enclave into a denser mixed-use neighborhood.
Renovation Plan And Timeline
Brandywine plans to kick off construction on Building 902 at 11501 Burnet Road by the end of July, reworking the roughly 172,000-square-foot, six-story structure along with its exterior. The current effort zeroes in on Buildings 902, 904, and 906, totaling about a half-million square feet of office space. Interior and exterior work is expected to cost about $31 million, or roughly $180 per square foot, with completion targeted by the end of 2027, according to The Real Deal.
What Uptown ATX Looks Like Today
The renovation push comes as Brandywine works to lease and market newer parts of the campus. The developer has already delivered One Uptown, an office tower, and Solaris House, a 341-unit apartment building that together are meant to help tie the site into a planned North Burnet transit station, according to Brandywine Realty Trust.
IBM's Move To The Domain
IBM is relocating to The Domain and is expected to leave space in Uptown ATX by mid-2027, opening the door for Brandywine to reposition large blocks of space. Cousins Properties announced a full-building commitment at Domain 12 for a Fortune 100 tech tenant for roughly 320,000 square feet, and CommercialSearch reported that the tenant was widely understood to be IBM and documented the lease assumption.
Market Signal: Vacancy And Rents
The upgrades arrive as Austin’s office market is losing some steam. Colliers Q1 2026 data shows overall vacancy up to about 22.4 percent and asking rents easing to roughly $45.45 per square foot. That cooling helps explain why Brandywine marketed about 1 million square feet of Austin offices last year while testing pricing in the slower market, according to the Austin Business Journal.
From Demolition To Rehab
Brandywine had once floated demolishing the 1980s Broadmoor campus and starting fresh, but the company shifted gears toward renovation after office fundamentals weakened. The reworked master plan trims the campus’s office allocation to roughly one-third and leans harder into mixed uses and amenities, a strategy detailed in earlier coverage by The Real Deal.
For tenants and local investors, Uptown ATX is shaping up as a test case for whether amenity-heavy rehabs can successfully re-lease big chunks of older office space. Watch leasing activity around The Domain and Uptown, and keep an eye on future reports from Colliers for signs that the market is absorbing this repositioned space.
