Zynga moves HQ to smaller footprint in San Mateo

Zynga has set up shop in downsized digs in San Mateo after vacating its 185,000-square-feet headquarters in San Francisco.

The video game maker has leased a 62,000-square-foot office at 1200 Park Place in Bay Meadows, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

The move comes as Zynga was acquired for $12.7 billion in May by New York-based Take-Two Interactive Software.

The software company, founded in 2007 and known for such games as “Zynga Poker,” announced a year ago it would vacate its South of Market headquarters at 650 Townsend Street after a shift to a hybrid workplace.

The former corporate hub, known as “The Dog House,” included a coffee shop, gaming arcade, gym, basketball court and wellness center, where employee “Zyngites” got free gourmet meals, access to an in-house nutritionist and personal training.

Less than 19 percent of its workforce remains in San Francisco. Zynga has six years left in its SoMa lease, which it listed for sublease in August 2021. It sold the building in 2019 to Beacon Capital Partners in a $500 million sale-leaseback deal.

Zynga maintains office space in the city for Chartboost and Echtra Games, which it acquired last year.

Some 300 Bay Area employees will have access to Zynga’s new headquarters in San Mateo. The company has a “connected workplace model,” in which most workers report to office “studios” two or three days each week, a spokesperson said.

The Peninsula offices include shared and individual workstations, private phone and focus rooms and 77 meeting rooms, plus “open concept meeting space” for company-wide presentations, town hall meetings and employee events.

The smaller headquarters also features an in-house coffee bar, a fully equipped game room and a “barking lot” for employees’ dogs.

The nearly 260,000-square-foot building that houses Zynga’s headquarters in San Mateo was bought in 2007 by undisclosed investors for $152 million. It was listed this summer for $275 million, but was pulled after offers came in far below the asking price, according to the Business Times.

A Gold Coast home once owned by Zynga co-founder Mark Pincus and his then-wife, One Kings Lane founder Alison Pincus, has dropped its asking price from $30 million to $20 million.

— Dana Bartholomew

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