UFCU Purchases Corporate Headquarters Facility

Austin, TEXAS — In order to better serve a growing membership base, University Federal Credit Union (UFCU) has purchased 8303 Mopac, a 246,000 square foot corporate office facility that will serve as its headquarters.

"Providing exceptional member service is at the heart of everything we do. Purchasing this facility will allow us to consolidate support staff currently housed in four North Austin locations into one location, thereby strengthening internal communications, teamwork, and organizational efficiencies," said Tony Budet, President and CEO of UFCU.

UFCU will occupy approximately 100,000 square feet of the building in 2013, leasing out remaining space.

Though the 3305 Steck Avenue building will eventually be sold, the first-floor financial center will be leased back, permitting it to permanently remain open to serve members, including deposit, lending, drive-thru, and walk-up ATM services. Three other North Austin facilities, the UFCU-owned building at 8800 Shoal Creek and two leased facilities, will eventually be sold or closed, respectively, permitting relocation of all administrative employees to the newly purchased 8303 Mopac facility.

"Given the current economic climate, we found this an exceptionally good time to invest in a facility to accommodate our cooperative's long-term growth needs. We paid $42 million, or $170/square foot, for the facility, a great price for a highly visible building of that quality and size on a heavily traveled corridor convenient to many of UFCU's core membership groups, including The University of Texas, our growing medical community, and other major Austin employers in our field of membership. Also attractive to us is the fact the facility is 94% leased out, so our cooperative will immediately benefit from resulting lease income, not to mention financial benefit of eventual sale or closure, respectively, of the four facilities that currently house administrative staff," said Budet.

Approaching $1.5 billion in assets, and with 11 existing and 3 new Austin-area financial centers scheduled to open this spring, UFCU is Austin's largest locally owned financial institution serving over 142,000 members in the Austin and Galveston areas.