When the renovation of the ’20s-era Sears building is complete, Uber will move in 2,000 to 3,000 new employees, the company said Wednesday.
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The deal comes as a bit of a surprise given that the Sears building sold just past year to Lane Partners for $25 million, and they were expected to be leasing it out – likely piece by piece to multiple tech companies. A long-closed entrance to the 19th Street BART station inside the building will reopen, providing a path directly into the market, according to project developers.
The company is also moving forward with plans for a two-building campus in San Francisco’s Mission Bay.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf sees the purchase as an opportunity for the city to gain popularity among investors who might find their city suitable for a real estate investment.
“We are excited to deepen our roots across the Bay by investing in the revitalization of historic downtown Oakland and to become a permanent part of the fabric of the East Bay community by adding thousands of jobs at our Oakland site”, said Renee Atwood, Uber global head of people and places, in a statement.
“We’re proud that Uber was attracted to Oakland’s creative energy, incredible talent, progressive values, prime location and accessibility to the entire region”, Schaaf said in a statement.
The new office building is anticipated to open in 2017 and it is located in 1955 Broadway Street in Oakland. She said, “Uber is absolutely ready to sit down and forge a partnership because they chose Oakland for its magic – for its soul – and so we are going to be working to get them to commit to make sure that we preserve that soul… and that’s affordability, that’s equity, that’s fighting against displacement and it’s also preserving the cultural vitality of that neighborhood”.
The 370,000-square-foot building is nowbeing renovated and will feature a large food court in an open-air market downstairs and offices upstairs, according to the developers.
“Office rents haven’t hit a point yet that justifies new construction”, said Egon Terplan, SPUR regional planning director and author of the report. “On the one hand: yaay for downtown Oakland, it’s about time that it stopped being a DMZ”, says commenter Josh Berkus.
The 1100 Broadway building also is stalled.
“The Uber deal marks a very dramatic shift for downtown Oakland”, said Sid Ewing, a senior vice president with Colliers global, a commercial realty brokerage.
So yes, wow. Uber is enormous and only getting more enormous by the day. Uber said it will keep the ground-floor retail. Oakland city leaders greeted the announcement with unbridled enthusiasm this afternoon.
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