Wave of subleases rises over Silicon Beach

Tech and streaming companies are ratcheting back their office presence in Silicon Beach, as both industries struggle with declining stock prices, hiring freezes and remote work.

NFL Network, Yahoo and 20th Century Studios are some of the firms that are each trying to sublease at least 120,000 square feet of office space across a stretch from Century City down to Santa Monica and across to Playa Vista, according to a Savills report obtained by TRD.

NFL Network, which operates the streaming service NFL+ and a pay TV network, is subleasing an entire 168,000-square-foot building at 10950 Washington Boulevard in Culver City — a property owned by Hudson Pacific Properties. The sports network’s lease on the property is up at the end of this year.

Hudson Pacific CEO Victor Coleman dismissed news that all tech companies were shrinking office footprints during a recent earnings call, but said some tenants are talking about waiting to upsize or not renewing space altogether.

In Playa Vista, Yahoo is subleasing three entire buildings totaling 133,000 square feet at 11975 West Bluff Creek Drive, an office campus owned by Tishman Speyer. It’s not the first time Yahoo has given up office space: in September, the firm put almost 300,000 square feet of its office campus in San Jose on the market.

20th Century Studios has given up some of its headquarters in Century City — about 138,000 square feet across three buildings at 2121 Avenue of the Stars and 10301 West Pico Boulevard.

Irvine Company’s 2121 Avenue of the Stars is known as Fox Plaza, given it serves as the headquarters for 20th Century Studios, which was formerly owned by Fox until it was acquired by The Walt Disney Company in 2019.

Edmunds, an online car retailer, has also given up its headquarters — two entire floors spanning 128,500 square feet at Boston Properties’ Colorado Center in Santa Monica. The company holds a lease on the property through January 2028.

On an earnings call last week, Boston Properties President Douglas Linde said the firm is seeing more leases being signed on the East Coast, rather than the West Coast, where the majority of tenants are technology and media firms.

“It’s hard to see the markets improving in any peculiar way without there being a meaningful change in technology companies’ desire to take additional office space,” Linde said.

West L.A. isn’t the only area feeling the brunt of the office market downturn. Netflix recently put about 180,000 square feet of office space in Burbank up for sublease, after reporting millions of lost subscribers and hundreds of layoffs.