ORLANDO-Agere Systems Inc. of Allentown, PA has contracted with the Seattle-based Advanced Technology Real Estate Group of Colliers International to sell its 188-acre, 1.1-million-sf semi-conductor manufacturing plant. The five-building property is on John Young Parkway in south Orlando.

The plant closed Sept. 30 after the Pennsylvania company failed to find a buyer after an international search of three years. Doug Barrett, vice president and managing director of the Colliers high-tech division, says the property contains about 101,000 sf of "maintained class 1-10 clean rooms that are permitted and operational, reducing lead time to upgrade or building a new facility by up to 30 months." The property also includes about 50 undeveloped acres for future expansion.

Although the property is suitable for numerous high-tech uses, area industrial brokers familiar with the site tell GlobeSt.com one use it is not compatible with is immediate conversion to a bulk warehouse or major distribution complex.

"Too much high-tech wiring and other high-tech related construction components [in the building] would probably make the conversion cost for commercial use too prohibitive at this time," a long-time Orlando industrial broker who has tried to find buyers for the property in the past tells GlobeSt.com.

Barrett tells GlobeSt.com he "can't comment" on the property's improbable use as a commercial site because "our mandate is to sell this campus as a clean room manufacturing facility."

Of the original 203 acres, Agere previously sold 15 acres to EastGroup Properties Inc. of Jackson, MI for $1.9 million or $126,666 per acre ($2.90 per sf), as GlobeSt.com reported. At that time, Agere officials confirmed for GlobeSt.com they had $90 million in pending sales deals for the company's computer hardware.

At one time, Agere officials were hoping to sell the entire plant and real estate for about $2 billion, area industrial brokers intimate with the property tell GlobeSt.com. At its peak production period in 2001, just before the global technology shakeout, Agere employed 1,800 technicians and support staffers. When the plant closed Sept. 30, the workforce was down to 135.

Besides the loss of jobs to the community, another big loser in the plant's closing was the Orange County government. Agere had been paying about $3 million in annual property taxes over the past six years, county tax records confirm. Agere is the county's largest taxpayer after Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando.