Rithm, Blackstone Lease Chunk of One Market Plaza in SF

A New York-based law firm leased Google’s former offices at One Market Plaza.

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP will open a San Francisco outpost in One Market Plaza’s Spear Tower, leasing 44,000 square feet across two floors, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

The 1.6-million-square-foot complex at 1 Market Street was left with a 320,000-square-foot vacancy when Google left Spear Tower at the end of its lease last spring.

The landlords, Paramount Group (now Rithm Capital) and Blackstone, have signed tenants since then, including law firm Simpson Thacher, which leased 32,000 square feet of Google’s former offices last year, as well as real estate services firm Colliers.

The building was 70 percent leased last year, according to a Paramount Group third quarter report.

Paramount Group and Blackstone paid down a $975 million loan backed by One Market Plaza to $850 million in 2024 in exchange for a three-year extension on the loan’s February 2027 maturity. That deal also includes a one-year forbearance period if Paramount and Blackstone are unable to refinance or otherwise settle the 2027 maturity.

The San Francisco office market’s vacancy rate was about 24 percent in the fourth quarter, according to CBRE. A decrease of nearly 2 million square feet in vacant or available space in the fourth quarter marked the largest drop in office availability in four consecutive quarters of decline.

Tech companies created 60 percent of demand, with AI firms accounting for half of that. But law firms are still big fish for leasing brokers.

Davis Polk relocated its Bay Area offices from Menlo Park to Redwood City in late 2024, Law.com reported.

In New York, the law firm inked a lease for 61,400 square feet in 237 Park Avenue in Midtown last spring, according to the New York Business Journal. In 2023, the company signed a 25-year extension and expansion of its 700,000-square-foot headquarters at RXR’s 450 Lexington Avenue. That deal was one of the city’s largest leases in 2023. — Chris Malone Méndez