Airbnb Commits To SF By Signing A 10-Year, 169,000 Square Foot Lease

http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2012/05/02/airbnb_commits_to_soma_by_signing_a_10year_169000_square_foot_lease.php

by joebottherobot • 14 years ago

51 40 14 years ago

sf.curbed.com

Airbnb signed a 10-year lease for the historic 888 Brannan building. The lease is for over 169,000 square feet, and Airbnb plans to move in by February of next year to accommodate the company's anticipated growth to more than 1,000 employees.

carguy19832• 14 years ago

1,000 employees? For what?

untog3• 14 years ago

I imagine that AirBnb needs a very large customer service team, for one.

brianchesky3• 14 years ago

Our customer support team is primarily home-shored, and works around the world in over 15 countries - less than 5% is in SF. The majority of people will be product, design, engineering... plus marketing, bd, operations, G&A, etc.

marcusf• 14 years ago

For any other europeans, 169,000 sq ft = 15 700 m^2 (or slightly bigger than two football pitches joined up).

I don't know enough about retail space to say if this is ambitious or not? On the one hand, a ten year lease is a big commitment, on the other hand I guess AirBnB is thinking 'go big or go home', and in that case it might well get cramped sooner than that.

TazeTSchnitzel• 14 years ago

Thank you. I was wondering why they were renting such a massive amount of space for a moment there.

mistermann• 14 years ago

What could they possibly need this much space for, and who is paying for it?

Bubblelicious.

staunch4• 14 years ago

Their tens of millions of dollars in revenue?

cpeterso2• 14 years ago

Shouldn't they deposit that money in a bank?

shabble• 14 years ago

Maybe they plan to divide it into smaller chunks and loan them out to people via some kind of internet website for that sort of thing?

pavel_lishin• 14 years ago

I'm actually wondering if they will ever get into the coworking space.

il• 14 years ago

Airbnb is frequenty cited as a counterpoint to all the bubble talk because they have a real business model and are making money. Same goes for all the other highly valued YC companies(Dropbox,OMGPOP,Heroku,etc).

mentat• 14 years ago

There seem to be non-trivial possible legal landmines though which are likely to multiply internationally.

cpeterso2• 14 years ago

888 Brannan does not look anything like the pristine building pictured in the article. Why would they need to post a clearly 'shopped picture of a building that already exists unless they were hiding something?

The actual building's windows are all painted over and that tree in the foreground does not exist. The freeway overpass pictured just across the street is a homeless encampment strewn with shopping carts, human feces, and needles. The city comes by about once a month to hose the sidewalk down with a noxious bleach solution.

btw, 888 Brannan is just around the corner from Zynga and Adobe.

ajross• 14 years ago

Presumably they'll be renovating and this is planning artwork from their architect. This is the equivalent of my sending my family concept sketches of my kitchen renovation. I can't imagine what they'd be "hiding".

Edit: this seems to be pretty close to the angle in the picture: http://g.co/maps/xj758

samstave• 14 years ago

Exactly - there is a LOT of TI money to renovate for projects such as these.

Arelius• 14 years ago

Speaking from having met someone on the renovation project, That is indeed artwork from the architect, The building itself quite nice, but it's gone a bit to shit recently, the renovation is supposed to be rather impressive.

larrys3• 14 years ago

"and this is planning artwork from their architect"

Good point but this appears to be the architect and the drawings on the website look nothing like the rendering that made the curbed story:

http://www.menaarchitects.com/portfolio/002_mixed_office_com...

bastardsage• 14 years ago

"Airbnb has partnered up with the world-famous Gensler Architects (same folks who renovated Terminal 2) to design the space. The building is also going to seek LEED Silver certification"

Obviously, the picture is what the building will look like after renovations are done.

larrys3• 14 years ago

"the picture is what the building will look like after renovations are done."

Gensler is doing the interior for Airbnb. This is who is doing the building exterior:

http://www.menaarchitects.com/portfolio/002_mixed_office_com...

encoderer• 14 years ago

This must be your first experience with architectural renderings.

hoop• 14 years ago

So every time a startup signs a lease for office space we have to read about it on front-page HN? Who cares? This isn't even interesting. As for the "commitment," a lease is simply an asset and can be sold like anything else.

Airbnb Commits To SF By Signing A 10-Year, 169,000 Square Foot Lease

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