A four-building industrial complex in Milpitas has traded hands for $94 million, landing in the portfolio of a real estate firm tied to former presidential candidate Tom Steyer. The buyer, Galvanize Real Estate, snapped up the Cadillac Court campus in a deal that marks its first foray into California, and its plans go well beyond simply collecting rent.
Galvanize Real Estate bought Cadillac Court, a four-building industrial complex in Milpitas, for $94 million, according to The Real Deal. The property spans roughly 300,000 square feet, according to Galvanize itself, though The Real Deal separately cites the figure at 302,450 square feet — and is about 95 percent leased. Tenants at the complex include solar company Sunrun and KZ Kitchen Cabinet & Store, the outlet reports. The buildings sit at 901, 1123 and 1151 Cadillac Court, with the address of the fourth building reported differently across sources — The Real Deal lists it as 1001 Cadillac Court, while Bisnow lists it as 1021 Cadillac Court.
The acquisition marks Galvanize's first California deal, The Real Deal reports. Galvanize Climate Solutions was co-founded in 2021 by Steyer, a 2020 presidential candidate and former California gubernatorial hopeful, along with business partner Katie Hall. The firm launched its Galvanize Real Estate platform in 2023 and made its first property acquisition the following year in Maryland, according to the same account. The Milpitas purchase pushed the platform's nationwide footprint to 3.5 million square feet, per Galvanize's own figures.
Power Capacity Becomes the Selling Point
Galvanize plans to increase Cadillac Court's power capacity while improving energy efficiency with solar generation and battery storage, the report notes. Joseph Sumberg said Galvanize plans to enhance the portfolio's efficiency while investing to meet growing industrial demand in Milpitas, and he expects the initiatives to benefit the local grid and attract high-quality tenants seeking reliable energy and price certainty, per the same account. Bisnow reports separately that the Cadillac Court buildings were constructed between 1991 and 1994 and have 8,000 amps of available power on site.
CBRE's Colin Yasukochi said investors are increasingly building real estate strategies around acquiring sites with high existing power capacity for future use or redevelopment, as reported by The Real Deal. That framing lines up with the broader shift Bisnow describes toward advanced manufacturing and AI-driven tenants competing for scarce industrial space with heavy electrical demands.
Silicon Valley's Industrial Market Is Tightening
Industrial leasing in Silicon Valley rose about 60 percent from the first quarter and 55 percent from a year earlier, according to The Real Deal's account of the market. Bisnow's separate figures put the quarterly jump at 60.4 percent from the prior quarter, with vacancy dipping to 6.2 percent on the strength of 1.4 million square feet of year-to-date net absorption. The Real Deal likewise cites Newmark's finding that the market recorded 1.4 million square feet of net absorption through the first half of the year.
That demand has been visible in several recent big-ticket leases around the South Bay. Supermicro leased a 714,000-square-foot office campus in San Jose for AI infrastructure and manufacturing operations, Bisnow reports, while Tesla leased 375,000 square feet of research and development space in Fremont's Warm Springs district for its AI efforts. Figure AI opened a nearly 99,000-square-foot robotics campus in San Jose in 2025, according to the same report.
A Campus That's Changed Hands Before
Cadillac Court itself has moved through several owners in recent years. DRA Advisors acquired the buildings from Blackstone in 2024 for $75 million, The Real Deal reports, a deal that was part of a larger transaction in which a DRA Advisors-led investor group picked up ten office, industrial and commercial buildings across Silicon Valley — four in Milpitas, two in San Jose and four in Santa Clara — for $222 million, according to the outlet's earlier coverage. Blackstone had acquired the South Bay buildings through its 2022 purchase of PS Business Parks for $7.6 billion, per that same report. Newmark represented DRA Advisors as the seller in the sale to Galvanize, The Real Deal notes.
