Twitter Seeks to Sublease Part of San Francisco Headquarters

EghtesadOnline: Twitter Inc. is offering about a quarter of the space at its San Francisco headquarters complex for sublease, adding to a growing amount of excess offices available in the city as the technology industry cools.

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09 August 2016

About 78,800 square feet (7,320 square meters) is listed for sublease on the seventh floor of 1355 Market St., a renovated 1930s furniture mart, and 104,850 square feet is available along three floors in an adjacent building at One Tenth St., according to marketing materials from Cresa, a commercial real estate firm.

“We’re always looking at ways to use our office spaces more efficiently and effectively,” Natalie Miyake, a Twitter spokeswoman, said in a statement. “We remain committed to our home in San Francisco’s Mid-Market area."

According to Bloomberg, subleasing is becoming more prevalent in San Francisco as venture-capital investments decline and tech firms slow their hiring from a breakneck pace. While the city’s overall office market remains strong, extra space is a warning sign that some companies overestimated their growth rate and are being forced to scale back. An increase in subleasing predated commercial real estate downturns following the 2008 financial crisis and the dot-com bust in the late 1990s.

Twitter, which has lost a third of its market value in the past year, has been grappling with several quarters of slower-than-expected growth, as well as executive turnover. The social-media companycut about 8 percent of its workforce at the end of 2015, looking to be more efficient about its spending. Its sublease plans werereported earlier Monday by the San Francisco Business Times.

The company has about 683,000 square feet leased at both buildings, according to brokerage Cushman & Wakefield Inc.

Twitter moved to its Mid-Market headquarters in 2012 after a threat to leave the city prompted San Francisco lawmakers to approve a payroll-tax break for companies that relocate to the blighted area. Other technology companies, including Zendesk Inc. and Yammer Inc. joined Twitter, while Uber Technologies Inc. and Square Inc. moved to an office building a block away without qualifying for the tax break.