Snap wants to vanish from Venice Beach

Snapchat messages are designed to disappear. Now, its parent company is seeking to do the same in Venice, where it has had a big presence.

Snap Inc. has put 163,000 square feet of office space across 14 sites in Venice Beach up for sublease as part of a move to consolidate operations at the Santa Monica Business Park, CoStar reported.

The locations range from nearly 45,000 square feet at the Thornton Lofts on the Venice Boardwalk, where most of the available space is located; to 2,800 square feet on Abbot Kinney Boulevard. Subleases range in price from $4 to $11 per square foot a month and are for two- to six-year periods.

Unlike many other tech companies, Snap Inc. never had a centralized location until last year, when it leased 300,000 square feet at the nearly 39-acre Santa Monica Business Park.

The company was founded in 2011 in Venice and spread its workers across numerous sites in the area, which wasn’t always popular with the locals. Some residents became so irritated with Snap’s ubiquitous presence on the boardwalk that they formed the Alliance for the Preservation of Venice, and urged locals to delete the popular messaging and photo app from their phones. Residents had also complained that Snap’s dominance over the small office market discouraged smaller companies from setting up in the neighborhood.

Snap’s new home at the massive 1-million-square-foot Santa Monica Business Park could reportedly grow. Part of its lease with the Blackstone Group includes a deal to add 100,000 square feet as other companies vacate.  [CoStar] – Dennis Lynch