Asana expands in SF with 71K sf sublease

While other Bay Area tech firms are shrinking their office space, Asana is gobbling up more.

The San Francisco-based software company has inked a sublease for 71,000 square feet at 680 Folsom Street, across from its SoMa headquarters, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

The 524,800-square-foot building, owned by Boston Properties, was once occupied by Macys.com, the online arm of the department store, which moved out in 2020.

The sublease runs through 2028. Asana is based across the street at 633 Folsom Street, a 12-story building redeveloped last year.

San Francisco life sciences company Benchling claimed part of Macy’s 250,000-square-foot sublease, taking 106,000 square feet over three floors. The building is nearly 100 percent leased, according to a recent Securities & Exchange Commision filing by Boston Properties.

The city’s office market is still reeling from the pandemic, with an overall vacancy rate of 22.4 percent in the second quarter, according to JLL, which represents about 19 million square feet of empty space.

Also, some 2 million square feet of subleases are set to expire through the end of 2023, according to the firm.

Tech companies in the Bay Area have led to severe office shrinkage during the era of remote work.

Etsy, whose employees say they prefer to work from home, announced this week it would close its office in San Francisco.

Twitter said it would cancel its office lease in Oakland in addition to vacating its remaining office space connected to its SoMa headquarters, where it leased several floors.

Earlier this month, Salesforce listed nearly half its office space at 50 Fremont Street for lease.

Block said last month that it would not renew the lease on its former headquarters in Mid-Market, while PayPal announced it would close its office at 425 Market Street.

– Dana Bartholomew

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