REPORT: Wharton Considering Financial District For Expansion Of San Francisco Campus
The Wharton School of Business is eyeing a move to the Financial District, The San Francisco Chronicle reported, citing anonymous sources.
The prestigious business school would relocate its San Francisco campus in what the Chronicle characterized as an “expansion.” The school is reportedly considering “The Cube,” a five-story modernist building at 345 Montgomery St.
The property's 80K SF includes two basement levels and an atrium occupied by The Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco. The building’s owner, Vornado, characterized the art museum as a “temporary installation” and told the Chronicle it was looking for long-term tenants.
The museum leases space in the building for free.
Wharton, which is launching an AI program for MBAs this fall, would follow an influx of AI companies signing leases and revitalizing the neighborhood.
The 25-story 420K SF office tower at 300 Howard St. in the South Financial District sold for $111.3M in a joint venture of DivcoWest and Blackstone Real Estate.
“300 Howard sits at the heart of one of the most innovative commercial corridors in the country,” said Gregg Walker, President of DivcoWest Real Estate Asset Management.
“We’re making a bold investment to reimagine the building as a next-generation workplace—one that inspires, attracts, and empowers the talent driving the future of AI and technology.”
Divco and Blackstone have launched an effort to rebrand the area as AI Alley, CoStar reported.
A slew of AI firms have been taking space in downtown San Francisco ever since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT put generative AI on the radar of every business in the country.
Open AI signed a lease for 350K SF at 550 Terry A. Francois Blvd., the former headquarters of Old Navy, in August of 2024.
In November, AI startup Notion set up a 105K SF office headquarters in the neighborhood, followed by the San Jose-based AI firm Lambda, which subleased 20K SF in a 34-story tower at 45 Fremont St. in December.
Subleases are popular among the early-stage companies still in the process of securing investment. Whether there’s causation or correlation between setting up shop in the so-called AI Alley and securing funding remains to be seen, but 52.3% of global AI venture capital went to companies based in San Francisco in 2024, according to a new report from Cushman & Wakefield.
The Bay Area hosts headquarters for 825 AI firms, Cushman reported. The proliferation of AI companies in beleaguered downtown San Francisco has been a bright spot for the office market. But with elevated vacancy rates —roughly 33% in FiDi — the market has a long road to recover its prepandemic status.
