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Emerging tech titan Anthropic to take over an entire office building in downtown S.F.
By Laura Waxmann, Staff Writer
Jan 30, 2026



Anthropic, one of the artificial intelligence sector’s marquee companies, closed a deal Friday to occupy an entire building at 300 Howard St., in what is expected to be one of the largest single-tenant office leases signed in downtown San Francisco since the pandemic. The clean, modern building featuring a curtain wall facade spans roughly 480,000 square feet and sits near Salesforce Park. Formerly known as 199 Fremont, it was previously leased to Fitbit, now part of Google, and StubHub, but has struggled in recent years to attract a major tenant amid persistently high vacancy rates in the city’s Financial District. For Anthropic, the lease at 300 Howard represents both expansion and consolidation. The company already has two lease commitments on Howard Street — it has occupied 230,000 square feet for its headquarters at 500 Howard St. since 2023, or Foundry Square IV, and in September agreed to lease several floors of office space totaling about 100,000 square feet at 505 Howard St., sources have confirmed that those agreements both expire in 2028.


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The Chronicle reported in November that Anthropic, founded in 2021 by San Francisco natives, siblings and former OpenAI executives Dario and Daniela Amodei, was eyeing a 13-year lease commitment at 300 Howard St. A spokesperson for the company confirmed Friday that the deal has been secured.

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Yet at a moment when San Francisco is searching for signs of recovery, the company’s expansion in downtown was closely watched by real estate market participants and city leaders as a potential inflection point for the city’s core, and the building itself has become a case study in the post-pandemic reset of the office market. The tower changed hands in 2025, when DivcoWest and Blackstone acquired it at a steep discount from its pre-pandemic valuation. The new owners moved quickly to reposition the property, rebranding it as 300 Howard and announcing plans for extensive renovations aimed at modern tenants, including upgraded amenity spaces, collaboration areas, and wellness facilities — investments that now appear to have paid off with Anthropic’s decision to take the entire building.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/realesta...e-21324597.php