PwC looks to exit Downtown for office in West San Jose

Downtown San Jose has one more business casualty that could head west: PwC.

The London-based global accounting firm officially known as PricewaterhouseCoopers International is in talks to lease three floors at a new office building at 3155 Olsen Drive, across from Santana Row in West San Jose, the San Jose Mercury News reported, citing unidentified sources.

If the deal is done for up to 150,000 square feet of offices at One Santana West, PwC would pull up stakes from its offices at 488 South Almaden Boulevard in Downtown.

The relocation would follow a similar move announced this month by Switzerland-based UBS Group. After 34 years in Downtown San Jose, it relocated to offices at the Santana Row mall.

The Zurich-based banking firm had occupied 12,600 square feet across the eighth floor at the building known as 50 West, owned by San Francisco-based Jay Paul Company, since 1989. In October 2020, it renewed its lease for two years, at $5.40 a square foot.

UBS moved its San Jose hub to a 9,000-square-foot office above Rosie McCann’s Irish Pub & Restaurant at 535 Santana Row, five miles away. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The eight-story One Santana West, completed last year by Maryland-based Federal Realty Investment Trust, contains 375,000 square feet of flexible offices. PwC is also pondering an office deal in Downtown Sunnyvale, sources said.

“It’s not surprising that Federal Realty would try to poach Downtown San Jose office tenants,” Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy, told the Mercury News. “This opens up opportunities for Peninsula office tenants to relocate to Downtown.”

Databricks, a software company, and Moss Adams, an accounting and consulting firm, also are in discussions about large office leases at One Santana West, the unidentified sources said.

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For Downtown, the defections impact the city’s urban core because it has a relatively small office market, with 10.7 million square feet. All it takes is one big loss — or one big lease by a growing Silicon Valley firm — to sway it.

“No one is going to build a new office building for some time,” said Mark Ritchie, president of San Jose-based Ritchie Commercial, a real estate firm. “The amount of office space will stay the same but companies will continue to grow.

“They will grow fastest in Silicon Valley.”

— Dana Bartholomew