Google Grows Office Footprint by 134K sf in SF’s Embarcadero

When it comes to San Francisco offices, Google taketh away, Google giveth back.

As the Mountain View-based tech firm prepares to move out of 320,000 square feet at One Market Plaza, it has inked a lease to expand its office by 134,000 square feet at Hills Plaza at 345 Spear and 2 Harrison streets, in the Embarcadero, the San Francisco Business Times reported, citing unidentified sources.

Google will expand its footprint at the two-building Hills Plaza campus to 550,000 square feet, from 416,000 square feet. Terms of the pending lease renewal-expansion with owner Morgan Stanley, based in New York, were not disclosed.

The search giant announced this spring it would vacate the three-building One Market Plaza at 1 Market Street, on the Embarcadero, by April.

The company plans to shift workers from One Market to the 650,000-square-foot Hills Plaza, a half mile away.

The net loss of offices to Google — and to San Francisco, where office vacancy now stands at 36.9 percent, according to CBRE — is 186,000 square feet.

Three years ago, Google moved to shrink its real estate footprint in the city.

In addition to declining to renew at One Market, Google exited offices it had leased from WeWork at 201 Spear Street in the fall of 2023. This summer, it renewed its lease for approximately 64,000 square feet at 215 Fremont Street, less than half its footprint before the pandemic.

Most of Google’s remaining San Francisco offices lie along the waterfront edge of the Financial District. The estimated tally of Google offices in the city: 1.4 million square feet.

In addition to its offices at Hills Plaza, Google maintains a 250,000-square-foot office at Landmark at One Market, a historic building next to One Market Plaza; a 208,900-square-foot lease at 101 Spear Street.; a 190,000-square-foot office at One Maritime Plaza; and a 41,400-square-foot office at the Ferry Building, according to the Business Times.

Google also occupies a 90,000-square-foot office building at 188 The Embarcadero.

The firm’s expansion in Hills Plaza is a win for Morgan Stanley Real Estate, which more than two decades ago bought the property for $197 million. Tenants include the San Francisco campus of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, which leases nearly 35,000 square feet for classrooms and offices.

— Dana Bartholomew