Bird, the company whose popular electric scooters are flocking cities nationwide, has signed a lease to occupy roughly 58,000 square feet at the Colorado Center in Santa Monica, The Real Deal has learned.
Sources close to the deal confirmed the full-floor lease is a short to medium-term solution as the company seeks to expand even further.
The Colorado Center, which spans a whole city block, is a six-building office campus with nearly 1.2 million square feet. It’s 84 percent occupied, with tenants that include Edmunds.com, a car shopping website, and Kite Pharma, a biotech pharmaceutical company.
Boston Properties acquired Blackstone Group’s nearly 50 percent stake in the property for $511 million in May 2016. The other half belongs to financial giant TIAA.
The deal marked the developer’s first foray into West Los Angeles, predating its $628 million purchase of the Santa Monica Business Park earlier this year.
Neither Bird nor Boston Properties responded to requests for comment.
Bird, a last-mile solution for commuters that charges by the minute, has grown tremendously in recent months. The firm is expected to hit a $2 billion valuation soon, up from a $300 million valuation just earlier this year.
On the Westside, the scooter has become a nightmare situation for city officials who are struggling with how to regulate the startup. The Santa Monica City Council is expected to vote on a pilot program that could cap the number of scooters and up permitting fees in September. Up the coast, San Francisco officials have already banned the popular scooter, a favorite among millennials.
The company, founded by Travis VanderZanden, operates in 22 cities in the country and plans to expand into Europe. Its competitor, Uber-backed Lime, can be found in about 70 cities in the U.S.