Petco Shedding Most of its San Antonio Office Space

San Antonio’s office market just took a kick in the gut.

San Diego-based Petco, a pet supplies retail chain, has put 73,000 square feet of office space up for sublease at 654 Richland Hills Drive, on the city’s Far West Side, the San Antonio Business Journal reported. That’s nearly 75 percent of the company’s footprint in the building.

Ryan Harrison and Brian Young of Merit Commercial Real Estate are marketing the space, which accounts for nearly 75 percent of Petco’s footprint in the building.

The offering prolongs the trend of companies shedding space in light of the remote-work era, which has wreaked havoc on office markets across the country since the pandemic.

“We are streamlining our approach at our San Antonio support center by subleasing available office space, while continuing to enable our team to drive meaningful contributions to the business through a hybrid work environment,” a Petco spokesperson told the outlet.

Other examples of San Antonio office users scaling back their operations include USAA moving out of 300 Convent Street in downtown in 2022. The 534,000-square-foot property is now 86 percent vacant, although a recent lease from Amegy Bank will fill part of that hole.

Tech company Oracle slashed its San Antonio footprint in half last month, when it signed a 34,000-square-foot lease renewal at the Spectrum building.

Yet, San Antonio’s office market is faring well relative to its Texas counterparts, with a vacancy rate of 11 percent. That’s lower than in Dallas, Houston and Austin, where vacancies were at 26 percent, 21 percent and 19 percent in the first quarter, respectively.

San Antonio is projected to lead the nation in office rent growth over the next four years, with rates projected to increase by 1.5 percent annually.

—Quinn Donoghue