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Snapchat parent company Snap Inc. signed on for 10 more years and 467K SF at BXP's Santa Monica Business Park. The space will be spread across multiple buildings in the complex.
Boston-based BXP, a publicly traded developer, owner and manager of office space, announced the lease Tuesday morning.
“We are thrilled that Snap will continue to innovate and grow their business at Santa Monica Business Park,” BXP Vice President of Leasing and Los Angeles Regional Director Alex Cameron said in a statement announcing the news. “Their commitment to Santa Monica, engagement with the surrounding community, and dedication to their employees’ experience are clear with this selection.”
In 2017, Snap signed a 10-year lease for about 300K SF at Santa Monica Business Park, adding an additional 140K SF in 2021 after Activision Blizzard left the property. By those calculations, it appears that Snap's new lease represents a roughly 27K SF expansion of their existing space at the property. Representatives for Snap and BXP did not respond to requests for comment from Bisnow.
The tech sector, once the source of many of the largest leases in the LA market, is now more frequently reducing its space and ranks. In 2022, Snap filed paperwork with the state to lay off about 400 workers in Santa Monica. Riot Games gave back 100K SF of office space late last year and on Monday announced it would lay off 11% of its workforce.
The Snap transaction comes at a time when the tech-heavy Westside office market as well as other office markets across the country are more likely to see tenants give space back than sign 10-year leases on large chunks of space.
Office leasing activity across the LA market in the fourth quarter of 2023 was down 35% compared to the five-year quarterly average and down 15% from Q3 2023, a year-end report from JLL found. Space give-backs in Q4 nudged the vacancy rate up to 26.5% in Q4 from 25.9% in Q3, JLL said.
In Santa Monica, a Savills Q4 2023 report found the availability rate at 28.9%, above the LA market's overall average of 26.7%.
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