DLA Piper to cut space in move to Stanford Research Park

UPDATED, Sept. 15, 2022, 7:43 p.m.: DLA Piper plans to shift its Silicon Valley office to a spot in Palo Alto’s Stanford Research Park that’s less than half the size of its current digs, coinciding with the law firm’s embrace of a work-from-anywhere model.

London-based DLA signed a lease for about 52,000 square feet at Sand Hill Property’s newly built office project at 3223 Hanover Street, according to Victoria Lee, managing partner of its Silicon Valley office. The firm took about a third of the first floor and the entire second level of the nearly 73,000-square-foot building, said DLA spokesperson Geneva Youel. Coworking company Industrious leases the rest, according to Newmark data.

Lee declined to disclose the lease’s financial terms other than its length — through 2036 — and square footage. CBRE, which represented both sides of the deal, doesn’t list the property’s asking rents online, saying they’re available upon request. The two-story building was completed last year and sits across from another Sand Hill project, a 115,000-square-foot campus occupied by JPMorgan Chase.

Faced with the choice of renewing at East Palo Alto’s University Circle complex, the site of DLA’s existing Silicon Valley office, or relocating, the firm chose the latter after its employees remained productive while working remotely, Lee said. The move, set for June, will cut DLA’s regional footprint by 56 percent. Its University Circle office totals about 118,000 square feet spanning the first five floors of one of the complex’s buildings.

Although DLA reopened the space last year after shuttering it in March 2020, when local health officials issued a Bay Area-wide shelter-in-place order, its 114-person Silicon Valley team isn’t required to spend any time there. That’s resulted in portions of the space becoming obsolete.

“The days of big corner offices, that’s just not reflective of the firm’s culture,” Lee said. The need for file shelves, rows of which line each floor of the existing office, has also dissipated as the firm transitions to an electronic filing system, she said.

The 3223 Hanover building landed on DLA’s shortlist partly because it’s available for occupancy before the firm’s University Circle lease expires next year, Lee said. Her firm was drawn to its clerestory windows and four balconies on the upper level, which, combined with the patio DLA plans to build on the first floor, will let employees take their work outside whenever they come into the office.

“We’re thinking about using this office, the way it’s going to be designed, as a way to attract and retain talent,” Lee said.

CBRE’s George Fox, Ham Southworth, and Patrick Reilly represented DLA in the deal, while the brokerage’s Damon Schor and Todd Husak represented Sand Hill. The latter owns the Hanover Street building but not the land underneath it, which the Stanford University Board of Trustees owns.

This story has been updated to include comments from DLA Piper’s Victoria Lee. 

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