“If she’s not happy, what’s the point?”
A wise old man asked me years ago about my failed attempts to impress a prospective date.
I was reminded of that dating experience recently, as San Francisco seemed stuck in its own dating rut. In this situation, the city of San Francisco will be a seeker, and the technology companies are not happy. It was like that for a long time.
Last week, Twitter announced that it would be vacating its headquarters in Soma — a large chunk of its 10th Street offices connected to the main Market Street building. Etsy also dropped office space last week, following Salesforce, Block, PayPal and others.
It hurts to see them all go. He feels rejected.
But it’s Twitter that sticks. In the year In 2011, the city threw itself at Twitter’s feet, when it suggested the fast-growing startup might be moving to Brisbane to escape payroll tax and find cheap real estate.
Mayor Ed Lee kept Twitter a priority and cut his love of a tax deal to move the company and others around Van Ness and Market streets. The newspaper called Twitter “extraordinarily important” in 2011, noting that the company has a “global brand and good reputation” and that keeping the company here “arguably could be the tipping point to finally bring positive energy back into decline.” and-out neighborhood” downtown market.
did it work Oh, for a while. It was the “Twitter effect” that drew in other tech companies and encouraged restaurants and bars in Hayes Valley and Soma.
The same thing happened with the opening of the Salesforce Tower at First and Mission. It was joy. Largest mixed use building west of Chicago! The SoulCycle studio across the street was packed every weekday night, and so were the nearby bars.
But I’ll let you in on a little secret: I worked in the Salesforce Tower for a while, and it was never full. If you got off the elevator on the wrong floor, it was often empty, and we use the word you hear a lot about empty city rooms these days: it was horrible.
That may also be true of the Twitter building, a 1 million-square-foot warehouse that literally echoes the void in places. Remember, that was in good time – when we thought the buildings downtown were full. This is because it is very difficult to measure the office space needs of fast-growing technology companies.
Colin Yasukochi, CEO of Colin Yasukochi’s commercial real estate company Technology Insights, needed more office space before they needed it. “It was a constantly moving target.”
So, imagine trying to figure out the office space needs for tech companies now, with Covid hanging over, hybrid jobs constantly in motion and a potential recession on the horizon. Shrinkage isn’t a rejection of tech companies in San Francisco. It’s about covid and the economy.
“Everybody asked, ‘How much space do we need?’ “Some companies want to bring people back two to three days a week. But what does that mean for office space needs?” Yasukochi says.
No one knows. But if somehow the big tech companies survive, that will fix everything. Just in the year If we like a cool person or company in 2011, everything will be fine.
Keeping big tech in San Francisco isn’t the biggest answer — and probably never was. In the year When the “Twitter tax break” expires in 2019, the city estimates it will lose $70 million in payroll taxes to pay back undisclosed investments.
“Twitter has benefited greatly and disproportionately from this tax break,” Supervisor Gordon Marr, a longtime critic of the tax cuts, said in an email. Meanwhile, “the middle market continues to face enormous challenges. Those challenges require more public investment, not less.”
“We are committed to our employees, our customers and the city of San Francisco,” a Twitter spokesperson said. Twitter is one of dozens of companies that have benefited from the temporary central market tax exemption, a spokesman said, adding that it has “improved parts of the city”.
“We will continue to call San Francisco home and our roots here remain strong,” the spokesperson said.
There’s no one big answer – put big tech downtown. Most of the workers are at home anyway, and many aren’t in the Bay Area.
But there are signs of hope for downtown revitalization. Yasukochi, a technology expert at real estate firm CBRE, said while many tech companies are downsizing their office space, some are expanding it “by leaps and bounds.”
CBRE shows that in downtown San Francisco, the best vacancies, “prime properties” (12.9%) are about half as much as other properties (24.9%).
Yasukochi says this is because companies want to “welcome” in-person jobs that emphasize quality over quantity.
“These new offices have better amenities, can incorporate new technology, maybe have more meeting rooms and smaller rooms,” he said. “So when you’re in the office, ‘Wow, I’m in the office!’ As opposed to saying, ‘Oh, I’m back in the office I came here for! years, and it’s still a scary place. “
Cybersecurity company Okta has deployed new hybrid workspaces near Salesforce Park to Apple Stores with easy-to-access workstations for faster collaboration. Employees put their belongings in a locker instead of tying them to a desk.
Better offices for hybrid work are incentives for tech to be downtown — but tech workers, not big companies. Tech workers are helping to revitalize downtown. And tech companies pay for better offices. Taxpayers don’t.
As Mayor London Braid did in March, the answer isn’t to push tech workers into office, asking tech companies to sign a “pledge” to implement workplace policies in person.
Let’s encourage the little ones for change. Restaurants and bars and shopkeepers in the city have been hit hard. Many did not have the option of moving or downsizing.
It would be great if technology could help with this. Perhaps by coordinating three-day in-person work weeks so that neighborhoods know when workers can buy lunch and beer after work. and providing employees with allowances for downtown restaurants and shops.
Marr says that in many ways the help of technology is needed.
We need collaboration and partnerships from the tech industry to revitalize downtown — but we don’t need more corporate security, he said. We need to clean up our streets, build more housing, support small businesses, and invest in downtown art, culture, open space, and public safety.
That gives all San Franciscans an incentive to revitalize downtown.
