Snap Inc. has yet to move into its newest office space on the Venice Beach Boardwalk, but when it does, it could be answering to a new landlord.
The building Snapchat’s parent company fully leased at 723 Ocean Front Walk was put on the market last week with an asking price of $20 million, The Real Deal has learned. Its owner is seeking a huge payday, after purchasing the property in 2004 for a mere $2.1 million.
Snap signed a five-year lease for the 6,952-square-foot office building with its owner, a partnership between Laurie and Michael Seplow; Andrew Seplow and Benjamin Schonbrun, property records show. The lease is scheduled to commence next month, said Alicia Shephard of Marcus & Millichap, who has the listing for the building along with her colleague Tobias Boessen.
Snap’s rent is a whopping $7.08 a square foot a month, according to a release from the brokerage. That values the five-year lease at just shy of $3M.
The property was built in 1953 by former owners and renowned architects Sid Galper and Cleo Baldon.
It’s no secret that the four-year old Snap has been overtaking Venice – swopping in on multiple office spaces as it continues to expand. TRD reported in late 2016 that the tech firm was in early talks to lease a substantial portion of Santa Monica Business Park at 2850-3420 Ocean Park Boulevard, seeking 350,000 to 400,000 square feet at the 12-building, 1 million-square-foot campus. Brokers had said Snap would retain its footprint in Venice, despite expanding in Santa Monica, which seems to be panning out.
The company also takes 79,000 square feet at the Santa Monica airport itself, as well as smaller blocks of space at 248 Westminster Avenue and 909 Ocean Front Walk in Venice. Additionally, it has the master lease for a 25-unit apartment complex, at 29 Navy Street in Venice, for intern housing.
Snap is keeping busy. The company is reported to have plans to file an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange next week, with a valuation between $20 and $25 billion. It would be the largest IPO since Alibaba went public for $168 billion in 2014.
Snap is also expanding internationally. It recently decided to locate its international headquarters in the U.K.