SAN MATEO — WeWork has extended its Bay Area expansion by leasing a four-story office building in San Mateo where up to 1,650 people could work, the company said Tuesday.
The company agreed to lease up to four floors in an office building at 400 Concar Drive in San Mateo that was developed by Hines, a realty firm.
This most recent deal marks a major milestone for WeWork: It’s the first time the provider of shared office space and services has passed the one-million-square-foot mark in total Bay Area office space.
It’s also the first time WeWork has occupied a site in San Mateo County.
“WeWork members all over the Bay Area have been asking for a location in San Mateo,” said Elton Kwok, general manager, Northern California at WeWork.
A WeWork member typically is a company or other organization that takes space in one of WeWork’s locations. The company serves roughly 14,500 members in the Bay Area.
Including the new Peninsula location, WeWork has struck deals to occupy locations in seven different Bay Area cities.
WeWork is already in San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley. The quickly expanding company also has announced leasing deals for offices in Mountain View, Mill Valley and now, San Mateo.
The four-story San Mateo office building WeWork leased totals 96,000 square feet, according to Hines. Throughout the Bay Area prior to the San Mateo transaction, WeWork had leased nearly 981,000 square feet of offices.
The new WeWork San Mateo location will be able to accommodate 1,650 desks, the company said.
“We’re thrilled to finally be able to service the Peninsula with our very first San Mateo location and meet the big demand in this booming community,” Kwok said.
In Silicon Valley, the East Bay and San Francisco, tech titans including Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon have bought or leased properties in an unprecedented expansion fueled by a hiring boom at these companies.
Yet the growth spurt also has filled big office buildings and planned campuses that haven’t yet been built. The quest for elbow room has made it tougher for medium- and small-sized companies to find sites for their own operations.
The WeWork business model can make it possible for companies of all sizes to find shared workspaces for their operations.
Among the high-profile members of WeWork in the Bay Area: Amazon’s Lab 126 has moved into a downtown San Jose office tower at the corner of East Santa Clara and North Second streets, and Facebook has agreed to take big blocks of space in Mountain View on San Antonio Road.
Worldwide, other big companies that have become WeWork members include General Electric, HSBC, Salesforce, Microsoft, RBC, Mastercard, Samsung, Spotify, Silicon Valley Bank, Nasdaq, Sprint, KPMG, Liberty Mutual, Lululemon, Pinterest, Red Bull, Bacardi, General Motors and Starbucks.
“WeWork provides more than 253,000 members around the world with space, community, and services through both physical and digital offerings,” the company said. “We transform buildings into dynamic environments for creativity, focus, and collaboration.”