Roku inks long-term lease at Colorado Center

Content streamer takes 72K sf at Boston Properties’ Santa Monica complex

Roku CEO Anthony Wood, Boston Properties CEO Owen Thomas and Colorado Center. (Bostom Properties, WikiMedia / Collision Conf)
Roku CEO Anthony Wood, Boston Properties CEO Owen Thomas and Colorado Center. (Bostom Properties, WikiMedia / Collision Conf)

Content streamer Roku has signed a long-term lease at Boston Properties’ Colorado Center in Santa Monica.

Roku inked a 10-year deal for 72,000 square feet at the Colorado Avenue office complex, Boston Properties announced. Roku now leases space at Water Garden office campus across the street.

The deal comes months after e-scooter startup Bird listed for sublease up to 72,000 square feet of space at the Colorado Center, which appears to be its entire footprint there. Bird had signed its lease in mid-2018. The company spent several million dollars upgrading and renovating its space, but laid off half of its staff there in March, and moved to remote working.

Roku joins more than a half-dozen other tenants at the 1.2-million-square-foot Colorado Center, including Hulu, which has 260,000 square feet, Edmunds and Kite Pharma.

HBO moved out of a 128,000-square-foot space at the property in December and landed in Culver City’s Ivy Station complex, in a lease signed in early 2019. There was talk that Hulu may take over HBO’s vacated space.

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Office leasing has been slow across much of Los Angeles since the pandemic hit, and overall vacancy has been on the rise. The office vacancy rate reached 17.1 percent in the first quarter of this year. Vacancy is expected to climb over the next year, according to CBRE projections.

The Colorado Center was Boston Properties’ first office acquisition in L.A. The real estate investment trust bought Blackstone Group’s 50 percent stake in the property in 2016 for $511 million. Colorado Center also has 37,000 square feet of retail space. The two largest tenants are TriFit Club & Studios and Daily Grill.

Boston Properties now owns 27 properties in the region. In August, it bought a 50 percent stake in a joint venture with Continental Development Corporation and Mar Ventures Inc. to develop a 6.4-acre site in El Segundo with office and media production space.