SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco building that file hosting service Dropbox leases as its headquarters is being sold for a whopping US$1.08 billion (RM4.4 billion), its owners said yesterday.
The price per square-meter for the building sale is a new high in the San Francisco commercial real estate market, according to proprietor Kilroy Realty Corporation.
“This is a resounding sign that people are still excited to be a part of San Francisco and its future,” San Francisco mayor London Breed said in a release.
Dropbox, which provides data storage and other services hosted in the internet cloud, signed a 15-year lease for all the office space in the building in 2017.
It is unclear how much of the 60,000 sq m office property is still being used by Dropbox given a shift to tech workers tending to their jobs remotely due to the pandemic.
Dropbox announced late last year it is becoming a “virtual first” company, with working from outside the office becoming the “primary experience” for its employees.
In its latest quarterly earnings report, Dropbox said it plans to sublease a portion of its office space while keeping some for team collaboration.
The tech firm reported US$398 million in “impairment charges” in the final quarter of last year related to its leased space.
Silicon Valley has seen the departure of some of its high-profile stars as a pandemic-linked shift to remote work and political polarisation have dulled the allure of the key tech industry hub. – AFP, March 9, 2021
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