Meta to Shrink Office Footprint by Half in Downtown Denver

Meta is taking a cleaver to its offices in Downtown Denver.

The parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp will cut its office presence to 24,000 square feet at 1900 16th Street, from 47,000 square feet, the Denver Business Journal reported.

The Menlo Park, Calif.-based tech giant plans to vacate its unneeded workspace by March.

The 406,400-square-foot building owned by an affiliate of Maryland NewTower Trust is up for sale and is 87 percent leased, according to a marketing brochure by JLL.

When Meta moves out, its occupancy will drop by around 5 percent after the firm “right-sizes and extends,” according to JLL.

Meta had leased 24,000 square feet on one floor of the building in 2018, then two years later expanded to 47,000 square feet across two floors, according to the Business Journal. The lease reduction was first reported by BusinessDen. Terms of the Meta lease were not disclosed.

The company’s 47,000-square-foot offices could accommodate 250 workers. In November 2022, about 100 Meta employees worked there, according to the Business Journal.

The smaller office footprint comes after several rounds of Meta layoffs.

The 17-story building, built in 2009, was revamped by Maryland NewTower in 2021 at a cost of $3.7 million. It now has three LEED certifications, according to the Business Journal.

Tenants include PricewaterhouseCoopers, First Western Trust, Analysis Group and Aether Investment Partners, with ground-floor shops occupied by Starbucks and Potbelly.

The asking price for the Downtown Denver building across from Union Station was not disclosed.

The property owned by the Maryland NewTower affiliate, Commons 19 LLC, includes a six-story parking garage at 1515 Delgany Street. A buyer could build a 150-unit residential highrise or 150,000-square-foot office building atop the garage, according to JLL.

— Dana Bartholomew