Google Signs Biggest Single-Building Office Lease in Recent Los Angeles History
Tech Company Takes 584,000 Square Feet at Former Westside Pavilion Mall Project
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Former Westside Pavilion indoor mall has been renamed One Westside as its owners redevelop it into a creative office center. Photo: CoStar Group.
In the largest office lease in a single building in recent Los Angeles history, search engine giant Google agreed to take more than a half million square feet of space at the former Westside Pavilion mall, a property to be made into a workplace complex by local real estate investment trust Hudson Pacific Properties and owner Macerich.
The Mountain View, California-based tech titan signed a 14-year deal to lease the entirety of the 584,000-square-foot Class A office redevelopment project at 10850 W. Pico Blvd. that has been renamed One Westside and is expected to open in 2022. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
CoStar records show the deal is the largest single office lease in one building completed in Los Angeles. It is the second-largest single office lease by square footage total in Los Angeles, surpassed only by satellite television broadcaster DirecTV Group Inc.’s 630,000 square-foot lease for its headquarters at three buildings in Kilroy Realty Corp.’s office complex in El Segundo in 2011.
“Google’s selection of One Westside demonstrates the strength of the Los Angeles tech and media industries and exemplifies the type of creative office space that is in demand from large tech and media tenants,” Victor Coleman, chairman and chief executive of Hudson Pacific Properties, said in a statement.
The Los Angeles market is heating up with major leases by technology giants including Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google based in Silicon Valley hundreds of miles north taking advantage of the Los Angeles entertainment industry to expand their online entertainment or marketing. Google has not yet disclosed how it plans to use this new space.
Macerich, the Santa Monica, California-based owner of the Westside Pavillion since 1998, and Hudson Pacific announced their joint venture at the property last March as part of a plan to turn the once struggling indoor-mall property into creative office space. Construction on One Westside, which is being designed by architecture firm Gensler, is expected to begin later this year and expected to cost up to $475 million.
One Westside plans call for high ceilings, a skylight and a multi-level atrium to allow natural lighting in the office space. The project is planned to provide up to 150,000-square-foot spaces on each level that allow for open layouts, according to the owners. About 45,000 square feet of outdoor terraces and patios with 15-foot wide folding glass walls are planned to provide an indoor-outdoor experience.
The property already has a garden deck on the rooftop and a bridge that offers direct access to the Westside Tavern restaurant and the Landmark Theatre as well as other retailers nearby.
Hudson Pacific owns 75 percent of the joint venture and is the property’s day-to-day operator and developer. Macerich owns 25 percent. The joint venture also owns 96,000 square feet of entertainment and retail space at the site.
Steve Basham, senior market analyst at CoStar Group, said Google may be attracted to the property because One Westside is rare. It is also in close proximity to the 405 and 10 freeways.
“It’s unusual for creative office space of that size to become available at once,” Basham said. “Location-wise it has to be all about talent in the area with big tech companies expanding their footprint.”
Nico Vilgiate, executive vice president at Colliers International who was not involved in the deal, echoed Basham’s sentiment. He said the project’s scale and central location were the “difference makers at the end of the day.”
He said in an email that “the large availability in itself is difficult to find in West L.A. plus it also offers Google a unique low-rise envelope which they can convert in a very unique way similar to their newly opened Spruce Goose location in Playa Vista. This expansion location is much more central than Playa Vista to the heart of Los Angeles.”
Google moved into 319,000 square feet at Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goosehome in Playa Vista a few months ago.
One Westside is about one mile west of Culver City where Apple and Amazon are expanding.
Amazon signed a lease last month for two more buildings at Los Angeles developer Hackman Capital Partners’ production office complex Culver Studios to double its entertainment production space there to 530,000 square feet. Meanwhile Apple’s entertainment division signed a lease for office space at 8777 Washington Blvd. in Culver City.
