As rumors swirled about who was going to buy the 432-acre former StorageTek facility in Louisville, about a half-dozen people were quietly putting together the $58.5 million deal. By Margaret Jackson The Denver Post Article Last Updated: 03/08/2008 06:55:50 PM MST
In the fall of 2006, ConocoPhillips chairman James Mulva and chief information officer Gene Batchelder realized the company was about to run out of space at its Houston headquarters and its research center in Bartlesville, Okla.
They hired Austin, Texas-based AngelouEconomics to help the company find a place to build new facilities. In keeping with the company's history, it narrowed the area to states in the nation's oil patch.
Last month, ConocoPhillips revealed plans to build a new technology center and corporate learning center on the 432-acre former StorageTek campus in Louisville it purchased from Sun Microsystems for $58.5 million. The announcement culminated a highly secretive process in which fewer than a half-dozen people knew the company's intentions.
"Colorado has been associated with oil, but is very pro new energy," said Mary Manning, general manager for global real estate and facilities service for ConocoPhillips. "We want to be a leader in that area. It was a great fit."
Many have said attracting ConocoPhillips is a coup for Gov. Bill Ritter, whose agenda includes promoting renewable energy. Ritter has pushed the legislature to pass a package of bills jump-starting what he calls the new energy economy.
About 18 months ago, Daniel Kah, Angelou's vice president of site selection, called the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. to inquire about available locations.
"We submitted 39 sites to the consultant, one of which was the Sun facility," said Tom Clark, executive vice president of the corporation. "Then it went dormant for a while."
Last summer, Kah contacted Denver attorney Jim Mulligan of Fairfield and Woods P.C. about representing the company in its efforts to buy the Sun campus, which was being widely marketed to corporations and developers.
Mulligan's role was to help negotiate the terms of the deal, form the due diligence team and assist with the acquisition.
"It seemed to me they wanted somebody who knew the lay of the land, who understood not only the legal structure, but also the political issues," Mulligan said.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sun bought StorageTek for $4.1 billion in 2005. It put the campus on the market last year and has been moving employees from there to its main Colorado campus in Broomfield.
Jones Lang LaSalle, which has worked with Sun for 13 years, worked with local land broker Stew Mosko to help with marketing the property.
Company's due diligence
Mosko "met on several occasions with their representatives," said Kenneth Rudy, managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle. "We believe ConocoPhillips showed up at one or two of the meetings, but they only gave their first names and wouldn't give their drivers' licenses at the security desk."
ConocoPhillips looked at more than 25 sites before it homed in on the old StorageTek campus, Manning said.
"We did all the proper and normal due diligence, title search and environmental studies, and we talked to the city as an anonymous buyer," she said.
Don Elliman, director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, said he met with ConocoPhillips representatives twice before the announcement but did not know the identity of the company until the day Ritter announced it.
"They believed in the agenda that Colorado seemed to be setting for itself, including the governor's agenda," Elliman said. "Our job is to make sure these guys become huge fans of the decision they made to come to the state of Colorado."
As ConocoPhillips got closer to a deal, its representatives started reaching out to city and state officials.
"I was on the periphery, and at times I was in the middle of it," said Louisville Mayor Chuck Sisk, who didn't know the company's identity until the day before the announcement was made. "I think they wanted to ensure the fact that the representatives of Louisville were open to business."
Over dinner at the Capitol Grill after the property was under contract, Mulligan reassured Elliman the deal would be good for the state.
"He wanted to get the governor's philosophical support," Elliman said. Kah also was at the dinner.
Manning said fewer than a half-dozen people were aware of the company's plans. They included Mulligan and Conoco leaders Mulva, Batchelder and herself. Through Denver attorney Lee Darling of Darling, Bergstrom & Milligan PC, ConocoPhillips in January formed a company called ST Acquisitions to purchase the site so it could keep its identity secret.
Keeping the secret
The company's identity was the subject of rampant speculation throughout the region, with rumors that the buyer of the site was everyone from Google to eBay to Microsoft.
"I was just as happy not to know who they were so I didn't have to lie to anybody," Elliman said.
Mulligan, the only person in the state who knew the company's identity, said it wasn't hard to keep it a secret.
"I've always been trained as an attorney that the highest value you give a client is confidentiality," he said.
Why all the secrecy?
"We wanted to be totally objective in our decision and make the very best possible selection," Manning said. "When you don't reveal yourself, you don't face different sites competing, and you're not asking for anything. Then you can make the most educated decision just based on the facts."
The facts, Manning said, are that Louisville has easy access to a major airport and it's an attractive place to live, which helps with recruiting new employees. "And the campus has a fabulous view."
Even after the deal had closed, the company still kept its identity secret.
"It was a matter of corporate timing," Manning said. "The chairman felt very excited about it and wanted to announce it at a special conference held every year in January for senior leaders of the company."
Since the deal was made public Feb. 20, company representatives also held court at Racines Restaurant to get to know state leaders. They also met in Louisville with city officials.
"It was mostly a get-to-know-you kind of meeting in terms of what their hopes and desires for the property are," said Paul Wood, Louisville's planning director. "They certainly have a lot of input to gather from their team in terms of what it's really going to look like. We didn't come out with any expressed timeline or scale and scope of the project."
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