Cybersecurity firm HQ signs lease at office building on TPA property
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Feb 15, 2022

A cybersecurity firm that declared Tampa its global headquarters city in early 2021 has found a new home base at Tampa International Airport.

OPSWAT has signed a lease for 31,660 square feet of office space at SkyCenter One, a newly built office building that’s part of the mixed-use SkyCenter development on airport property. Financial terms were not disclosed; the lease term is for just over 10 years, OPSWAT said Tuesday.

Bill Obregon, senior vice president with CBRE Group Inc., represented OPSWAT in the lease transaction.

The company said it expects to move more than 100 employees to SkyCenter in the fourth quarter of 2022. Until construction on its space is complete, OPSWAT will continue to operate from its East Lake-Orient Park office, which it obtained after acquiring Tampa software company Impulse in 2019.

“One of the biggest challenges after establishing Tampa as our global headquarters was finding an office that would meet the current needs of OPSWAT’s high operational growth and offer the flexibility for future business needs,” Benny Czarny, OPSWAT founder and CEO, said in a statement.

Despite the prevalence of remote work in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, Tampa Bay’s office market has remained stable. While vacancy rates are up, according to CBRE's most recent data, rents have risen just under 14% since the beginning of the pandemic. Several significant office deals were signed in 2021, including headquarters deals for ReliaQuest and ConnectWise.

Kansas City-based Van Trust Real Estate is the developer of SkyCenter One. Van Trust opened its Tampa office in the 270,000-square-foot SkyCenter; the general contractor on the building, J.E. Dunn, and Avison Young, the commercial real estate firm marketing the building for lease, have also moved their offices there.

The SkyCenter development at TPA includes a hotel, an atrium with a roof terrace and a pedestrian bridge connecting the rental car center to SkyCenter One and potentially another office tower.

“VanTrust is excited to welcome OPSWAT, and we’re extremely thankful they have selected SkyCenter One as its global headquarters,” Marc Munago, executive vice president, VanTrust Real Estate, said in a statement.