Meta recently left the office space it occupied in Mountain View at The Village at San Antonio Center, ending its longterm lease for the newly built office buildings.
In a statement responding to the lease termination, the tech giant told the Voice it's aiming to build “a best-in-class remote work experience.”
“The future of work is here and we’re embracing it at Meta,” said Tessa Giammona with Meta’s corporation communications. “The past few years have brought new possibilities around the role of the office, and we are prioritizing making focused, balanced investments to support our most strategic longterm priorities and lead the way in creating the workplace of the future.”
According to Mountain View city officials, The Village at San Antonio Center includes two office buildings, each with ground-floor retail-commercial space.
“WeWork holds the lease on the two office buildings and some of the ground-floor commercial space,” said Lenka Wright, the city’s chief communications officer. “Facebook (now Meta) was their only lessee for the office area, and there are no other office tenants in the Village at San Antonio.”
Though Meta no longer occupies two office spaces at 391 and 401 San Antonio Road, which it had originally committed to until 2034, Giammona said the company remains “firmly committed to the San Francisco Bay Area as evidenced by the thousands of Meta employees who live and work here.”
Mountain View’s not the only location where Meta is vacating offices and shifting toward a remote model. The Silicon Valley Business Journal reported that on the other side of the country, the company has "backed out of roughly 200,000 square feet it occupied at 225 Park Ave. in Manhattan, saying that it no longer needed the space,” an Oct. 12 article said. “It also over the summer paused plans to build out Hudson Yards, where it leased more than 1.5 million square feet pre-pandemic, and reversed plans on a 300,000-square-foot expansion at Vornado Realty Trust’s 770 Broadway in New York City."
Peter Katz, president and CEO of the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce, told the Voice that businesses in the city are continuing to assess the impact of the pandemic and how to adjust going forward.
“Some are saying, we think we can fill it or we think we can either do something else in the space, or actually we will be hiring that number over the next couple years and it’s more economical to hold onto it,” Katz said. “Others are looking to totally vacate. So it really depends.”
In Meta’s case, Katz added, the company issued a statement last year giving its employees the option to work remotely for anyone whose job can be done at home.
“I think all companies are dealing with the fact that more people will be working remote, and what they want to do with the space,” Katz said.
Comments
Registered user
Old Mountain View
on Nov 3, 2022 at 2:01 pm
Registered user
on Nov 3, 2022 at 2:01 pm
Just an observation,
I have been trying to get this city ready for this for 2 years. When Covid forced Meta, and Alphabet to use Work From Home, it was a perfect test to see if they could function equally well without the local centralized offices in the valley.
It PROVED that it works and thus the businesses have WASTED too much money on the offices in Santa Clara County.
And NOW Meta has officially stated it woill NOT return to the old system. If Meta is doing this, so is Alphabet and Apple. This is terrible news for Mountain View.
Given that the PROMISES of expansion are about to become what they really were VAPORWARE, just like Mattel Intellivision personal computer module that NEVER arrived. in 1980s.
These people remind me of the song from the 80s called Promises, Promises. The lyrics go like this:
"Never had a doubt in the beginning, Never a doubt
Trusted you true in the beginning, I loved you right through
Arm in arm we laughed like kids, At all the silly things we did
You made me promises, promises, Knowing I'd believe
Promises, promises, You knew you'd never keep
Second time around, I'm still believing, The words that you said
You said you'd always be here, "In love forever", still repeats in my head
You can't finish what you start ,If this is love, it breaks my heart
You made me promises, promises, You knew you'd never keep, Promises, promises, Why do I believe?"
Face it EVERYONE, you cannot hope for a MIRACLE here, the tech industry is pulling out. What is going to happen to all of the first floor busineesses now? They are going to close. Especially if you are betting on the WeWork model, that is a proven disaster.
The City Council KNEW all about this probably for more than a month, but didn't tell the City about it.
Registered user
Monta Loma
on Nov 3, 2022 at 2:32 pm
Registered user
on Nov 3, 2022 at 2:32 pm
And why exactly is Mtn View building MORE office buildings when fewer are needed, instead of building more housing to address the jobs:housing imbalance we already have?
Registered user
Jackson Park
on Nov 3, 2022 at 2:35 pm
Registered user
on Nov 3, 2022 at 2:35 pm
@JAFO I totally agree.
And as a Gen-Xer, Promises, Promises by Naked Eyes: Web Link
Registered user
Blossom Valley
on Nov 3, 2022 at 3:35 pm
Registered user
on Nov 3, 2022 at 3:35 pm
Out of control growth in Mountain View has never made sense to me. Today, it makes less sense than ever…
Registered user
Old Mountain View
on Nov 3, 2022 at 4:02 pm
Registered user
on Nov 3, 2022 at 4:02 pm
Dan,
I think this is the first time we ever agreed on anything. It may surprise you who JAFO is, just remember the on called TBM "The Bowel Movement" LOL
In any event, The City has even more problems than this, the City Inspector signs off on construction, but does not REQUIRE that building materials be scanned for defects, especially wood. This construction standards was established with a document from the Dept. of Interior called "In situ assessment of structural timber using non-destructive
techniques" it was published by the DOI here is the id code (DOI 10.1617/s11527-013-0093-6 It was published in 2013.
The reality is that this requirement would require A LOT of wood purchased by contractors to be thrown away because of defects. There can be no ASSUMPTION of safety just by buying it from a supplier. In my example Balcony work was done using defective wood, resulting in cracks forming in less than a year.
Garbage Used is Garbage Deliverd in this case. And contractors KNOW it. They do not want to provide any records of any testing on materials because of it. Their suppliers should test the wood and provide the results to contractors as an alternative. But suppliers are scared they will have to trash a lot of wood in their inventory.
And yet the City does not comply with building codes, thus city residents are stuck with residences with a reasonable doubt of safety because of a lack of testing and record keeping.
Registered user
Rengstorff Park
on Nov 3, 2022 at 7:29 pm
Registered user
on Nov 3, 2022 at 7:29 pm
Fishscapes, Milk Pail, Bierhaus, Sprouts... all gone to make room for Facebook and of legions tech bros. Now they are leaving town, maybe you can ask those businesses to come back? I don't think that's how it works unfortunately. At least some billionaire Atherton developers made it rich(er).
Registered user
Another Mountain View Neighborhood
on Nov 4, 2022 at 8:04 am
Registered user
on Nov 4, 2022 at 8:04 am
I don't understand this "Mountain View is building offices" narrative. Companies are building offices. Companies are generally not known for spending money on things they don't need.
I would be happy to see the office building proposed for the Milk Pail site replaced with apartments. But if someone goes ahead and builds it, they must think there's a market for it, and I think they know better than the armchair analysts who comment on Voice articles.
Registered user
Cuesta Park
on Nov 4, 2022 at 11:14 am
Registered user
on Nov 4, 2022 at 11:14 am
Ivg, in the world before Yimbys, towns had a quaint power known as "local control". Most every proposal has supporters and objectors, each side would make their case to the leaders of the town, who would then - as elected representatives for the entire community - make the final decision, yay or nay. They would presumably make the decision based on what was best for the community as a whole. So the expression 'MV is building offices' refers to the fact that the leaders of MV have formally approved the construction of office space.
You are correct that MV does not build offices. In the same vein, MV does not build residential housing. The majority of the time it is DEVELOPERS who build both. They aren't interested in what is best for the community, they want to maximize their profits, just like every other for profit business. Without government interference, they would focus entirely on building offices and market rate housing. Whether that situation is acceptable or unacceptable depends on ones political views.
Registered user
another community
on Nov 4, 2022 at 1:49 pm
Registered user
on Nov 4, 2022 at 1:49 pm
The office towers at San Antonio Center were speculation. They were not built by companies which planned to occupy them. The developer leased them long term to WeWork which still has the leases and has to pay for them, empty or not. WeWork had thought they had subleased them to Facebook but Meta has an out to he deal. That's why the buildings are empty. WeWork typically has a lot of different tenants in their buildings. There's another building owned by a different office space coworking provider on El Camino at Castro. That space also now has vacancies. WeWork is in danger of a full bankruptcy for other reasons.
If the 2 buildings at San Antonio Center remain empty, new state laws encourage the owner to convert them to housing. But it's not clear there is a demand for housing anyway.
Registered user
Old Mountain View
on Nov 4, 2022 at 4:30 pm
Registered user
on Nov 4, 2022 at 4:30 pm
JUst an Observation,
WAIT, longresident, are you saying that the City expected that this project was going to collapse?
WeWork is falling apart, you cannot say that it will even survive the next 12 months. WeWork stock lost more than 70% this year, it was originally offered at $10. but is now only $2.60. The fact is WeWork is going to go out of business.
There are so many people who initially invested in it, so you have those with conflicts of interest trying to promote the stock, even today, and yet it still loses money. For the q3 and q4 of 2021 the business had a total of $47.3M in assets but also has $48.95M in liabilities, in effect it lost $1.65M and that was when the bubble of real estate was still in effect. The current year is going to be a major disaster.
The fact that property values are dropping in the Commercial Sector even worse than residential. This whole project was a house of cards, and EVERYONE knew it. The idea that this cities council got suckered into it was amazing. To many people think the so called Gig economy was reliable. That has proven to be a failure as well. Practically all so called gig or internet based businesses are failing.
Just look at OpenDoor, Zillow, Redfin, Lyft, Uber and others. They all are dropping jobs and becoming junk stock investments.
What a disaster of a plan, And you think that Alphabet(Google) is going to save this city. No , they are going to adopt the same Work From Home model, and very likely going to write off all of the campuses for tax benefits.
This city is heading over a cliff, and the city council just disabled the brakes