Kansas City’s largest private employer already had several properties facing uncertain futures amid its transition to a hybrid workforce. And that was before news broke Thursday evening that Cerner Corp. was in talks to become Oracle Corp.’s largest acquisition to date.

With Monday’s announcement of $28.3 billion merger terms, new Cerner CEO Dr. David Feinberg said in a release that Oracle “is committed to maintaining and growing our community presence, including in the Kansas City area.”

In a Monday email to associates, Feinberg further said:

“Oracle believes in Cerner, what we’ve achieved so far, and with this investment, they want to help us grow. … Oracle’s leadership has said they want to invest in our people, and they want to invest in our business. I’m incredibly optimistic about what this means for Cerner and our mission, our associates, our caregivers and our communities.”

Shrinking footprint

What a potential Cerner-Oracle merger means for the former’s sizable real estate presence around Kansas City is unclear.

Feinberg told associates that the merger agreement “has come together quickly — within weeks.” For the better part of a year beforehand, the company already had gotten the ball rolling on shrinking its local office footprint.

In February, Cerner listed its Oaks Campus in the Northland, after the 2020 sale of its RevWorks business to R1 RCM Inc. In July, NorthPoint Development acquired that 17.37-acre property for a planned headquarters move from Riverside.

Two other office sites Cerner indicated it would divest — its 32.4-acre Riverport property in the Northland and 63.5-acre Continuous Campus in Kansas City, Kansas — remain listed for sale through Colliers International. The company also is marketing a portion of its offices in Malvern, Pennsylvania, according to its latest quarterly report with the Securities and Exchange Commission.