Coinbase paid tens of millions of dollars to officially ditch its global headquarters after the onset of the pandemic. Years later, the nation's largest cryptocurrency platform is set to replant its corporate flag after signing an office lease at San Francisco's Mission Rock development.
The company that facilitates the buying, selling and trading of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin has finalized a deal for more than 150,670 square feet at 1090 Dr. Maya Angelou Lane. The building is one of several office properties being developed through a partnership between development giant Tishman Speyer and the MLB's San Francisco Giants along the city's waterfront.
The lease is the third-largest office deal to be signed this year in San Francisco, one of the markets hit hardest by the pandemic in large part because of its longstanding dependence on the tech industry. The city is rebounding, however, with leasing volume hitting its highest level this year since early 2022.
The Coinbase deal will account for about half of the nearly 300,000-square-foot building, which opened in 2023 and also houses offices for the NBA's Golden State Warriors. Combined, the two agreements fill six of the building's eight levels.
A spokesperson for the cryptocurrency exchange did not immediately respond to CoStar News' requests for more details about the deal, which was earlier reported by the San Francisco Chronicle prior to its finalization.
Remote first
The deal is an about-face for Coinbase, which in 2021 made its "remote first" work model official and decided to no longer operate a corporate headquarters. The company had been subleasing almost 274,000 square feet through an agreement with coworking operator WeWork at 430 California St. in downtown San Francisco before dissolving the deal.
"Closing our [San Francisco] office is an important step in ensuring no office becomes an unofficial [headquarters], and will mean career outcomes are based on capability and output rather than location," the company said in a social media post at the time of the decision. "Instead, we will offer a network of smaller offices for our employees to work from if they choose to."
Coinbase followed up the closure with its 2023 agreement for about 40,000 square feet, again through WeWork, in the Silicon Valley suburb of Mountain View. The company appears to have held on to that space far past its initial one-year term, according to CoStar data.
The lease comes after Coinbase forecast a hit of $180 million to $400 million from a recent cyberattack that breached some customer account data, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday.
Return to an office
Across the United States, employers such as Coinbase are rolling back pandemic-era policies that gave workers unprecedented flexibility in terms of where and how they worked.
Among Fortune 500 companies, more than half have implemented return-to-office policies that require employees to commute to a physical hub at least three days a week. However, the number of corporate heavyweights stepping up their in-person mandates has spiked in recent months, with roughly 25 of the largest companies by revenue now demanding Monday-through-Friday workweeks.
After years of depressed demand and surging vacancy rates, those escalating attendance requirements are finally beginning to translate into leasing momentum across the national office market.
While vacancy remains stuck at a record high of about 14%, according to CoStar, new leasing volume through the first quarter of this year finally hit its pre-pandemic average of about 115 million square feet. This trend appears to be holding despite a backdrop of economic turmoil and uncertainty.
At Mission Rock, Coinbase will join a handful of other tenants that have signed on for space at the roughly 28-acre development as it gradually begins to fill.
Payments giant Visa took over a 300,000-square-foot building at the project for its headquarters, and Parisian tech company Capgemini signed on for about 30,000 square feet in the office portion of the 283-unit The Canyon multifamily complex at 1011 Third St.
