The Mercury News

TikTok owner eyes big San Jose office

Internet titan eyes sublease of Roku office building

- By George Avalos gavalos @bayareanew­sgroup.com

SAN JOSE >> The giant tech company that owns TikTok is eyeing an office deal in San Jose that could enable the popular video-sharing social media app to significan­tly expand its real estate footprint in Silicon Valley.

China-based ByteDance is discussing a sublease of a large office building on Coleman Avenue in San Jose, according to several commercial property sources who are familiar with the potential rental transactio­n.

The building is located in Coleman Highline, an office, hotel and housing complex located across the street from San Jose Internatio­nal Airport, the sources said. The sources did not wish to be named because, while they have close knowledge of the possible transactio­n, they are not authorized to discuss the leasing talks.

ByteDance already occupies a big office complex in Coleman Highline after the company subleased 658,000 square feet of new office space that encompasse­s the entirety of two buildings with addresses of 1193 and 1199 Coleman Ave. That rental agreement occurred in 2022 and ByteDance began to occupy the space by early 2023.

In September, Roku, which rents several buildings in Coleman Highline, revealed in a regulatory filing that it had decided to slash its office footprint at the tech campus and would attempt to sublease two of the buildings it occupied.

Roku has put up for sublease buildings at 1155 Coleman Ave., which is the current Roku headquarte­rs building, and at 1143 Coleman Ave., according to a brochure being circulated by Colliers, a commercial real estate company that is seeking tenants for the buildings that are being made available.

The 1155 Coleman office building totals 194,500 square feet while the 1143 Coleman building totals 162,600 square feet, the Colliers brochure states.T he office buildings that Roku is offering for sublease could potentiall­y accommodat­e 600 to 900 workers.

Roku did not immedi

ately respond to a request for a comment or context regarding the sublease situation.

ByteDance is in discussion­s to sublease at least one of the buildings, according to the sources. It wasn't immediatel­y clear which of the buildings was involved in the negotiatio­ns.

The 658,000 square feet that ByteDance already occupies is potentiall­y enough office space to accommodat­e 2,600 to 3,900 workers, based on typical space ratios for employees in modern office sites.

Tech companies starting in 2023 began to drasticall­y slash their office footprints as a result of shifting work trends in the wake of the coronaviru­s outbreak.

The onset of the pandemic triggered more remote work, a trend that caused demand to boom for tech devices and tech services.

The shift to working from home or remotely has reduced the appetite for office space on the part of the tech industry. Tech companies also re-prioritize­d their focus to new industries such as artificial intelligen­ce, which prompted a surge of industry layoffs that began more than two years ago.

Since early 2022, tech companies have chopped more than 32,800 jobs in the Bay Area, according to official filings with state labor officials.

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