Uber is no longer planning to base any employees in Oakland, once a key component of its Bay Area expansion plans.
The ride-sharing company will sell Uptown Station, the building being renovated in downtown Oakland, the San Francisco Business Times reports. Uber plans to consolidate its operations into its under-construction Mission Bay buildings off Third Street and near the Chase Center and to vacate its San Francisco office buildings off Market Street by 2019.
Uber has been under increased scrutiny following the removal of founder and CEO Travis Kalanick. Uber’s Otto autonomous vehicle company also is being sued by Google’s Waymo over a former executive stealing self-driving technology.
The private company has yet to post a profit, but losses were less steep last quarter. Losses decreased 9% to $708M compared to the first quarter. Uber posted a $3B loss in 2016. Uber's bookings totaled $8.7B compared to $7.5B in the first quarter, the Business Standard reports.
When Uber purchased the Uptown Station building in 2015 for $123.5M, it originally planned to house 2,500 employees in Oakland. With the sell-off of this building and consolidation in San Francisco, its total Bay Area office footprint will total less than 1M SF compared to over 2M SF.
The 300K SF Class-A office building has high ceilings and sits above the 19th Street BART station. Uber’s sale of the property will open up significant space in the high-demand, low-vacancy downtown market. It also is a good time to sell office assets in Oakland.
