Dropbox's San Francisco HQ is selling for a record-breaking $1.08 billion
Andrew Chamings
sfgate.com
March 8, 2021
It's a story that has been common across large tech firms in San Francisco over recent months — first, a company announces a work-from-home strategy, then comes the unloading of San Francisco office space. But this deal is a whopper.
File-hosting service Dropbox's Mission Bay headquarters — a four-building complex at 1800 Owens Street — is selling for $1.08 billion, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
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The astounding sale marks yet another major tech firm pulling out of San Francisco office space as working from home becomes the new normal. In October, Dropbox made the announcement that the office-to-home shift was permanent.
“We believe the data shows the shift to remote work, though abrupt, has been successful overall,” the company said in a blog post at the time. “... In our internal surveys most employees say they’re able to be productive at home (nearly 90%) and don’t want to return to a rigid five-day in-office workweek.”
In February it was revealed that Uber was looking to unload a large chunk of office space, also in Mission Bay, before they had even moved in.
Salesforce, which employs over 9,000 people in the Bay Area, announced in February its “Work From Anywhere” strategy, estimating that more than 65% of employees will adopt the new system, based on a company survey.
In January, Digital Realty — a tech support company that employs around 1,500 people worldwide — announced its headquarter's relocation to Austin, the tech capital of Texas.
Yelp's San Francisco headquarters at 140 New Montgomery St. is also now up for lease. “With more employees working remotely we’re reducing some of our footprint in San Francisco, but we will still maintain our HQ office there,” the crowd-sourced reviews company said in a statement.
Last year, Pinterest, the social-sharing site popular for pinning recipes, home inspiration and more, canceled its $89.5 million San Francisco office lease.
In another sector, Gap Inc., recently announced to employees it will be closing its Old Navy offices in Mission Bay and consolidating those workers into the parent company’s Embarcadero office building.
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