TikTok talks to Meta about office sublease in San Francisco

The politically embattled TikTok may take up new offices in San Francisco leased by its competitor, Meta.

The social media firm owned by Beijing-based Bytedance is in talks to sublease three floors of offices at 181 Fremont Street, in SoMa’s Transbay District, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, citing unidentified real estate sources.

The deal isn’t inked, but talks continue.

The 57-story tower has 435,000 square feet of mostly empty offices across 34 floors, topped by luxury condominiums. 

Meta leased the offices after the $500 million building was completed in 2018, for occupancy by its Instagram division. Its lease ends in March 2031.

In January last year, the Menlo Park-based parent company of Facebook put the building up for sublease, months after announcing it would spend $3 billion to end global office leases to cut costs.

Meta’s capsule of cubicles is the largest sublease listing in San Francisco after a shift to remote work during the pandemic drove office vacancy to a record 35.9 percent, according to CBRE.

A spokesperson for Meta neither confirmed nor denied a potential deal with TikTok, declining to comment to the newspaper. TikTok and Bytedance didn’t respond to requests for comment. 

Both companies took heat in Washington, D.C. this week, with lawmakers pressuring Bytedance to sell the popular video platform, alleging its data is available to the Chinese government.

If TikTok can clinch an office deal with Meta, it would be the second sublease at 181 Fremont.

In October, Palo Alto-based Navan subleased 36,000 square feet of offices from the Menlo Park-based tech firm. Terms of the deal by the travel tech company were not disclosed.

The 700-foot office-condo tower, located around the corner from Salesforce Tower, is owned by locally based Jay Paul Company.

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Meta retains its 755,000-square-foot Transbay office in the Park Tower at 250 Howard Street. 

TikTok leases co-working space from WeWork at 600 California Street, where the company has the option to remain, unidentified sources told the Chronicle. The firm reportedly seeks 60,000 square feet of new offices.

In 2022, TikTok parent ByteDance subleased Yahoo’s 650,000-square-foot campus at 1189, 1193 and 1199 Coleman Avenue in north San Jose. In January, the firm was in talks to sublease one of two office buildings leased by Roku on the same street, according to the Mercury News.

— Dana Bartholomew