Spotify unveils 155k sf podcasting hub in Arts District

Spotify has unveiled a sprawling office and podcasting complex in Downtown Los Angeles’ Arts District.

The center at 555 Mateo Street includes 18 podcast studios, a theater, an indoor stage and soundproof listening areas, according to the L.A. Times. It can accommodate 600 employees.

The company plans to centralize its podcasting business at the complex, and hopes the sleek new podcasting facilities will help attract talent.

The property is owned by a joint venture of Blatteis & Schnur and ASB Real Estate Investments and known as At Mateo. Sweden-based Podcast moved from West Hollywood to the Arts District in 2018 and has been building out its space there since then,
Spotify’s West Hollywood space was just 8,200 square feet.

The company signed a 10-year deal for 110,000 square feet in mid-2018 and added another 45,000 square feet about a year later.

The expansion came around the same time Spotify rebranded from a primarily music streaming service to an “audio platform” with a major focus on podcasting.

The company bought out podcast publisher Gimlet Media and then podcast ad company Megaphone. Between February and September 2019, the number of podcasts available on the platform more than doubled from 185,000 to 450,000.

Spotify released 108 new and exclusive podcast series in the third quarter of this year. Unlike any of the music on the platform, Spotify owns those shows. It is slated to count more monthly U.S. podcast listeners by the end of the year than Apple Podcasts.

Spotify earlier this year launched a live audio chat room service to compete with Clubhouse and announced in November it would buy audiobook business Findaway to compete with Audible.

At Mateo was originally conceived as a retail-heavy complex, but the developers changed those plans in 2017. The complex is now mostly office space. Soylent and the University of Southern California’s design school are also tenants at the complex.

[LAT] — Dennis Lynch