Facebook Seals Deal to More Than Quadruple in Size in Los Angeles
Exclusive: Social Networking Company Signs for 260,000 Square Feet of Offices
BY KAREN JORDAN (via CoStar Group)
The Brickyard in Playa Vista. Illustration: CoStar.
Social networking giant Facebook is embarking on its largest expansion so far in Los Angeles, staking a major claim to space in one of the region’s most prominent neighborhoods for technology companies as the confluence of internet and entertainment further transform the nation’s second-largest city.
The company, based more than 300 miles away in the Silicon Valley stronghold of Menlo Park, is signing leases totaling more than 260,000 square feet in both buildings at a creative office complex called the Brickyard in Playa Vista. While Facebook hasn’t specified its use for the space, it comes as tech companies set up second bases across Los Angeles, the U.S. industry town for film and television production.
In the first official confirmation of the deal closing, CoStar data shows Facebook agreed to occupy all of New York real estate investor Tishman Speyer’s 122,043-square-foot creative office property, at 12126 W. Waterfront Drive, which was built last year. The company also agreed to take up 140,248 square feet in the landlord’s second building at 12105 W. Waterfront Drive, according to CoStar data.
The company plans an ambitious expansion when it relocates from the 50,000 square feet it leases at Playa Jefferson office complex at 12777 W. Jefferson Blvd. It moved into that property three years ago, according to CoStar data.
The company joins other major tech businesses in the area including Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, which just expanded into 319,000 square feet at a former Howard Hughes aircraft hangar nearby. The stretch from Playa Vista up the Pacific Coast to Santa Monica is so rich with tech companies it’s been dubbed Silicon Beach.
While Facebook has not yet disclosed what it plans to do at the offices, it is scheduled to move into the Brickyard in Playa Vista in the first quarter, according to CoStar. Facebook, in both deals, agreed to pay $67.80 per square foot annually in rent, according to CoStar data.
Other tenants in that building include Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television, which occupies 48,506 square feet, and Sweat Yoga and Blue Bottle Coffee, which each take up 1,000 square feet, according to CoStar data. The building’s amenities include daycare, rooftop terraces, retail space, bike storage and outdoor dining, according to the Brickyard’s website.
Facebook did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Tishman Speyer declined to comment.
The large number of tech companies in Playa Vista are having a big impact on the area. Playa Vista is now one of the most popular locations for jobs citywide, according to CoStar Market Analytics.
The area’s proximity to the beach, access to freeways and LA International Airport, and ample stock of apartments and large swaths of office space make it a very attractive area for recruitment and retaining of employee talent for these companies, according to Thacher Goodwin, vice president at brokerage Colliers International.
“The recent flood of tech companies to Playa Vista – Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, to name a few – is a result of that area being one of the few for some time where companies in need of larger blocks of space (campus setting) could find it,” Goodwin said in an email. “After the most notable tech companies planted their flag in Playa Vista over the last few years, it’s quickly become a very desirable tech hub of the lower Westside, and many of those larger blocks are now leased up.”
FOX Interactive Media and the headquarters of 3D movie company IMAX also call the area home.
“Companies love Playa Vista for all the reasons developers and investors spent so much time and money to get it built – location,” James Malone, senior managing director at Colliers International, said in an email.
Some of the biggest office sales in the Westside region of Los Angeles also occurred in Playa Vista this year, including the largest sale of 2018 when Houston-based real estate firm Hines Global REIT sold the 340,300 square-foot Campus at Playa Vista, a four-building property, to an entity of Chicago-based investment firm Heitman for $335 million, or almost $985 per square foot, according to CoStar.
