Google Cloud just signed the largest new lease since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, as first reported by the San Francisco Business Times. The company will take over Stripe’s former headquarters in SoMa at 510 Townsend, a 300,000-square-foot space the payment processing company occupied since 2015.
Google did not return SFGATE’s request for comment.
Stripe announced it was moving its office to South San Francisco in 2019 because of skyrocketing SF office prices and was always considered a pioneer in remote work. In September 2020, Stripe even offered its employees the ability to move outside the Bay Area and receive a $20,000 bonus — while taking a 10% pay cut.
When Stripe signed the lease for 510 Townsend, it was the biggest lease in the city signed at the time.
The San Francisco office market vacancy rate crept up to 23.8% in the first quarter of 2022, according to CBRE, but with a huge office space renewal just last week by banking giant Wells Fargo, and another reportedly on the horizon from Levi Strauss & Co., this quarter’s numbers could be looking up.
