Texas Instruments has taken Tucson off its waivers list.

The company, which is in the midst of shutting down its manufacturing operations near Tucson International Airport, announced April 3 it will take over bigger facilities for a "design center of excellence."

At an event hosted by Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities (TREO), the company announced it is moving into 100,000 square feet in two former AOL buildings in the Williams Centre.

The new facilities, 5401 and 5421 E. Williams Blvd., will house development engineers for its analog semiconductor products.

"TI Tucson is an important, long-term product design center for Texas Instruments and will continue developing some of the company’s most advanced analog products – a key growth area for TI," said David M. Jones, the company’s vice president of the precision analog division.

Texas Instruments says it will sell its current 94,000-square-feet facilities at 6730 S. Tucson Blvd. Those buildings date back to the 1960s when they were built for Burr-Brown, which Texas Instruments acquired in 2000. Burr-Brown was founded in 1956 by Page Burr and Tom Brown and was in several Tucson locations before moving to the site at the airport.

Texas Instruments announced last year that it would shut down its Tucson production facilities, combining all analog chip production in Texas. That was seen as a blow for Tucson economic development. The lease for the office space in Williams Centre was described as a long-term lease.

Jones said Texas Instruments never wanted to leave Tucson and was just trying to figure out the right opportunity to stay. The company plans to move this summer.

"To attract the kind of tech-savvy individuals we want, we decided we needed to be in a modern, centrally located facility," Jones said.