The car-service app company Uber Technologies heads for expansion as they buy two parcels of lot area in San Francisco's Mission Bay neighborhood.
Uber and Alexandria Real Estate Equities, a Pasedana-based land developer, announced Thursday that they will develop a 423,000-square-foot headquarters for the car-service mobile app company. In the area will rise two 10-story building. Uber will own 49% of the space and will lease the rest in a 15-year contract.
Uber bough the land located at 1455 and 1515 Third Street for $125 million from Salesforce.com, which also initially planned to build their headquarters in the lot. The plan was abandoned in 2012 when Salesforce.com decided instead to expand into San Francisco's financial district and lease half of the tallest building in the city.
The area where Uber's HQ will be built is near Golden State Warrior's 18,000-seat stadium to finish construction in 2017. The neighborhood is also the home of the University of Califonia's San Francisco campus.
The plan follows Uber's announcement of expanding their original headquarters, which used to be a Bank of America, in San Francisco. They will keep their old battlestation and even double the space. The company already signed the lease to expand the office to 280,00 square feet.
There's a need for expansion due to the surprising rise of Uber. It's now valued at over $15 billion. Its reach is fast spreading worldwide. Just four months ago, they moved into an 88,000-square-foot office which has a space for 600 employees.
Alexandria's CEO Joel Marcus said that construction is slated to start in January next year and deemed to be finished by 2016. It's posed to mirror Uber's Mid-Market headquarters aesthetics with an open office layout, large meeting space, and waterfront views.
Mission Bay was supposed to be a biotech area, but more consumer tech companies are building their headquarters in the neighborhood.
