Amazon Exiting Shorenstein Properties Building in SF

Amazon is abandoning 130,000 square feet of offices in San Francisco’s Financial District.

The e-commerce giant is reportedly preparing to exit its offices at 188 Spear Street. The move would leave several floors at the Shorenstein Properties-owned building vacant, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Amazon has three main locations in the city and is gearing up to move out as its long-term lease on Spear Street is set to expire early next year.

The Amazon office, internally referred to as “SFO13,” was made available for direct leasing on Friday, less than a year before Amazon’s lease ends. The company has not confirmed that it is exiting.

With its lease expiring, Amazon is “evaluating our options, while prioritizing bringing teams closer together and making it easier to collaborate,” Amazon spokesperson Steve Kelly told the outlet.

Its other San Francisco offices are at 525 Market Street and 660 Third Street.

The 12-story building at 188 Spear already has a lingering vacancy.

Software firm New Relic, the building’s second-largest tenant, began looking for a subtenant for about half of its four floors in the building in 2023. Its former 55,000-square-foot space is now being marketed for direct leasing, according to CoStar.

The rush for the doors at 188 Spear Street stands in contrast to another nearby office tower, 181 Fremont Street. While 188 Spear was built in the 1970s, 181 Fremont was completed in 2018 and has attracted marquee tenants as more office users gravitate toward newer buildings. The “flight to quality” at 181 Fremont has attracted major tech and artificial intelligence tenants in recent years including Meta, Zendesk, Strava, Mercor and Perplexity AI.

— Chris Malone Méndez