Oracle plans 'world headquarters' in Nashville after moving HQ to Austin in 2020

Software giant Oracle Corp. may move its world headquarters from Austin to Nashville in a bid to seize on the Tennessee capital's budding health care sector, co-founder Larry Ellison announced at the company’s health care summit Tuesday.

During a conversation with former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Ellison said the world's second-largest tech company is developing a health campus in Nashville that will “ultimately be our world headquarters," according to reporting by The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network.

In Nashville, Oracle is developing a 70-acre property on the city's downtown riverfront. Oracle officials have previously said the Nashville and Austin campuses will both be U.S. headquarters locations, according to The Tennessean. The company pledged to create 8,500 jobs by 2031 as part of a $1.35 billion office development in Nashville, according to the Nashville Business Journal.

In 2018, Oracle opened a five-story, 560,000-square-foot campus overlooking Lady Bird Lake in Southeast Austin. At a ribbon-cutting ceremony in March 2018, Ellison said he expected the campus to eventually grow to 10,000 employees.

“We have a handful of hubs in the United States, and Austin is one of the key places we want to be because that’s where we think our people want to be,” Ellison said at the event.

In 2020, Oracle moved its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin. At that time, Oracle's headcount in Austin was estimated to be about 2,500 people, according to the local chamber of commerce.

“Oracle is implementing a more flexible employee work location policy and has changed its Corporate Headquarters from Redwood City, California to Austin, Texas," the company said in a statement at the time. "We believe these moves best position Oracle for growth and provide our personnel with more flexibility about where and how they work."

More:Oracle bets big on Austin, as founder Larry Ellison says new campus will eventually employ 10,000

The first, 560,000-square-foot phase of Oracle's campus marked the largest office project completed in Austin in 2018. The company later expanded with a second phase totaling 420,000 square feet. As of last fall, the campus had three office buildings totaling nearly 1 million square feet of space.

Last year, Oracle proposed to add another office building with more than 287,000 square feet of space; a 255-room hotel; an events center with 10,000 square feet of space; a 5,000-square-foot conference center; and a health and fitness club with 50,000 square feet of space, according to city documents. Oracle is not asking for incentives for the planned expansion.

At the time, a real estate attorney and lobbyist representing the company, Richard Suttle Jr., said the proposed expansion represented the company "reaffirming their commitment to Austin, Texas, as their headquarters."

Oracle did not immediately respond to an inquiry Wednesday seeking more information.

Real estate brokers have said Oracle's presence in Southeast Austin has been a catalyst that has accelerated other residential and commercial growth in the area, which, even before Oracle's arrival, had been gentrifying with new luxury housing, retail, office and other development.

This story is developing. Check back for updates.