Uber will lease out entire office building in San Francisco

[mahatmakanejeeves]

News // Bay Area & State

Uber will lease out entire office building in San Francisco

Tessa McLean, SFGATE
May 18, 2023
Updated: May 18, 2023 1:47 p.m.



Uber's headquarters in Mission Bay, San Francisco, California, November 19, 2020.
Smith Collection/Gado/Gado via Getty Images

Rumors that Uber was abandoning one of its new office buildings in Mission Bay have been circulating since 2021. This week, CoStar News finally confirmed it was true and that the entire building at 1725 Third Street is for lease. ... This will slash Uber’s splashy new San Francisco headquarters by about a third, releasing nearly 300,000 square feet onto the commercial real estate market. The ride-hailing company never occupied the building.

“We remain committed to our hybrid work approach which emphasizes in-person collaboration and continue to welcome employees to our Mission Bay campus,” an Uber spokesperson told SFGATE.

Tech giants across the Bay Area have been rapidly shedding office space in the wake moving to hybrid work environments and recent mass layoffs. In March, Pinterest announced the closure of two offices, Reddit slashed the amount of space it occupies almost in half and Meta eliminated 435,000 square feet. Meanwhile, Google could pay upwards of $500 million as they seek to shrink their office footprint.

The vacancy rate in San Francisco in the first quarter of 2023 climbed to 29.4%, up from 27.6% in the fourth quarter of 2022 and is poised to rise this quarter, according to commercial real estate firm CBRE.

Written By
Tessa McLean
Reach Tessa on https://twitter.com/mcleantessa
Tessa is a Local Editor for SFGATE. Before joining the team in 2019, she specialized in food, drink and lifestyle content for numerous publications including Liquor.com, The Bold Italic, 7x7 and more. Contact her at [e-mail].

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Some quick conversions to luxury apartments might alleviate the housing crunch

Few companies may need that size office space now or anytime soon.

[IbogaProject]

2. Those conversions are neither quick nor easy.

The plumbing and ventilation are arranged way differently in commercial buildings. And there will be a lag as these properties default on loans. It will take awhile to even consider conversions. These are the first cracks of the breakdown of the economy. Things are going to get serious over the next couple of years.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

3. maybe a college, university could use the space