Callisto Media to Sublease 78K sf of Offices in Downtown Oakland

Callisto Media aims to sublease a floor of its Oakland offices after laying off hundreds of workers.

The Oakland-based publisher has listed 78,000 square feet of offices for sublease at the century-old Uptown Station at 1955 Broadway, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

The offices are leased by Block, a fintech firm that delisted its San Francisco headquarters last year. In 2021, Block subleased the fourth floor at Uptown Station to Callisto.

Callisto Media is now assessing its offices at Uptown Station and is “trying to get to the right size” within the building or may exit it entirely, an unidentified source with knowledge of Callisto’s real estate plans told the Business Times.
The sublease listing is marketed by Avison Young.

It’s unclear whether Callisto kept a 15,000-square-foot office it leased in Emeryville before signing on at Uptown Station. The Emeryville office is no longer listed on Callisto’s website.

The publishing startup, founded in 2011, by its own account has sold 50 million books.

Last summer, however, Callisto laid off 140 employees, or 35 percent of its workforce. In October, it laid off up to 200 more workers in California and at its New York office, according to Publishers Weekly, which blamed a decline in juvenile nonfiction sales.

In the weeks leading up to the second round of layoffs, Callisto employees were reportedly told the company wouldn’t enforce a return-to-work policy – and found their keycards to their California and New York offices had been deactivated.

Block wasn’t able to use Uptown Station as it had intended. The fintech firm leased the 356,000-square-foot office building in 2018, with a term expiring in 2031. It hadn’t been there long when the pandemic forced most workers to work from home.

After listing a third of its new East Bay office for sublease, it delisted its 470,000-square-foot San Francisco headquarters in July, and chose to close the Mid-Market shop at 1455 Market Street.

Meanwhile, Uptown Station has changed hands multiple times over the past decade.

The white triangular building, which opened in 1912 as H.C. Capwell Department Store, was acquired by Lane Partners in 2014, which hired Gensler to revitalize it into offices. In 2015, Uber paid $123.5 million for the property, but never moved in.

CIM Group, based in Los Angeles, bought the building in 2017 for $180 million and completed its renovation. In early 2021, Singapore-based Mapletree Investments bought Uptown Station for $420 million. It has an atrium lobby, outdoor roof decks and 35,000 square feet of ground floor shops and restaurants, including a Shake Shack.

The sublease by Callisto, however, adds to Oakland’s office hardships. Sublease availability is 5.8 percent in Downtown Oakland, while office vacancy is 26.8 percent, according to a year-end 2022 report by JLL. It said Oakland’s occupancy losses “can largely be attributed to the influx of sublease space that hit the market.”

Fivetran and Clorox put a combined five floors on the market inside of 1221 Broadway, according to the Business Times. Binti listed an entire floor at 1212 Broadway, while CoreLogic listed space for sublease at 555 12th Street.

Two more full floor vacancies hit the market at 1901 Harrison and 1333 Broadway, after Burnham Brown and IMPAQ International, respectively, moved out.

— Dana Bartholomew