Construction on Apple’s gigantic spaceship headquarters in Cupertino is coming along nicely, but the iPhone maker is reportedly looking to take its first big bite of San Francisco real estate.
Apple has reached an agreement to rent about 76,000 square feet of office space in the city’s South of Market neighborhood, reports the San Francisco Business Times, citing several real estate sources in San Francisco. The sublease, taking over two floors of a building at 235 Second St., could hold between 400 and 500 employees, according to the publication.
The San Francisco offices would be tiny compared to the 2.8 million-square-foot spaceship campus in Silicon Valley. Apple has also been eyeing expansion into San Jose, according to a rumor earlier this year that claimed the company was considering renting out Ellis Partners’ 300,000-square-foot building on Orchard Parkway.
Apple has declined to comment on any real estate plans. However, if the company does sublease the SOMA office space from CBS Interactive, it would be Apple’s first big push into an area that’s become a hotbed for the biggest companies in tech.
Which employees would work at the San Francisco offices is anyone’s guess at this point. Beats Music leases 26,000 square feet of office space in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood, but its lease is up in 2017. Maybe Dre’s offices are getting an upgrade now that Apple Music seems to be off to a decent start.
