Google to Lease Out 413K SF of Offices in Redwood City

Google wants to rent out nearly 413,000 square feet of empty offices in Redwood City.

The Mountain View-based search giant has put three buildings at its Pacific Shores Center up for lease at 1500, 1700 and 1800 Seaport Boulevard, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

CBRE holds the listing. Lease terms for the offices were not disclosed.

Google bought the bulk of the 106-acre Pacific Shores development in 2014 for an undisclosed sum, then occupied six buildings containing 934,000 square feet.

The 23-year-old waterfront campus north of the Redwood City Port overlooks bay wetlands.

The three buildings up for lease include a 174,700-square-foot building at 1500 Seaport, a 128,300-square-foot building at 1700 Seaport and a 119,700-square-foot building at 1800 Seaport.

A pandemic shift to remote work led by tech firms has unsettled the commercial real estate market, with Google last year announcing it would save $640 million by cutting back on office real estate, according to a regulatory filing.

The Google building exits have rocked the broader Peninsula office market.

Last month, the Class A office vacancy rate, including Pacific Shores, was 18.4 percent, according to Colliers. The market had 1.1 million square feet in net negative absorption, with more offices vacated than leased.

Pacific Shores had high vacancy after the dot-com bust, when it was completed in 2002. Now, with so many premium offices available, it may get a lift from the artificial intelligence boom, along with other nearby developments, brokers told the Business Times.

Amanda Anthony, economic development manager for Redwood City, has been talking with Peninsula real estate brokers. As more AI startups expand, she said it may be time to give them more support.

One idea: carve out smaller offices within large trophy properties like Pacific Shores. Tom Siebel’s C3.ai occupies one of the few buildings at Pacific Shores that’s still busy with workers.

“Redwood City has been a hub of innovation,” Anthony, citing companies that have planted their headquarters in the city including Oracle and Electronic Arts, told the newspaper. “Now with AI firms looking to expand, Redwood City is well positioned.”

— Dana Bartholomew