UPDATED — When LSI’s Engenio storage division sold to NetApp in 2011, one piece of the LSI business remained at the NetApp building on North Rock Road.
LSI is now moving into its own space at the Ruffin Building at 9111 E. Douglas, which is the one-time Pizza Hut headquarters.
“We’re excited to have them,” says Chris Ruffin, director of real estate for his father Phil Ruffin’s Ruffin Properties.
The 5-year lease is for 19,000 square feet of the 254,000-square-foot building.
“I have about 25,000 left,” Ruffin says of what’s still available to lease.
Marty Gilchrist and Grant Tidemann of J.P. Weigand & Sons helped him with the deal.
“They were instrumental in helping put it together,” Ruffin says.
Also helping was California-based Ham Southworth of Studley Inc. Southworth represents LSI nationally.
He says about 50 people will be moving. Southworth says most are engineers but there are sales, operations and marketing employees as well.
“They’re going to move in as soon as possible,” Ruffin says. He anticipates that will take three or four months.
Other tenants include Ally, CCH and Pure-Formance Sports & Fitness Training Center, which Ruffin says is open to the public.
He says Ruffin Properties recently spent $115,000 on landscaping at the Ruffin Building.
“And it’s going to really improve … the overall appearance to the building.”
Ruffin says the LSI lease is significant.
“It’s just a really good deal,” Ruffin says.
And not just for Ruffin Properties and LSI, he says, but for Wichita in general.
“It means that the private sector’s moving a little bit.”
