Having sat vacant for 20 years, the 56,000-square-foot office condo at 25 Taylor Street, above the Golden Gate Theater, was purchased by War Horse Cities for $6 million in 2012 and converted into “WeWork Golden Gate,” which opened in 2013 and “activated and energized the district and paved the way for even more revitalization in the area, where creativity and the community can once again thrive.”

But WeWork vacated the landmark space, which was been built-out with numerous conference rooms, private offices and call booths, earlier this year.  And the condo, which has since been de-badged and “can be easily reconfigured to allow for more open floor plans if desired,” is now back in play, with the War Horse offering to either sell or lease the property to another party.

Studio Dental’s lease for 2,700 square feet of the condo’s space on the ground floor fronting Taylor would survive.  And as we noted last week, there is over 17 million square feet of vacant office space now spread across San Francisco, or roughly 312 WeWork Golden Gate’s worth of space. We’ll keep you posted and plugged-in.

20 thoughts on “Shuttered WeWork Golden Gate Space Back on the Market”
  1. Beautiful building, really bad stretch of market street. I wonder which type of company would thrive here: Spotify and the Venture Capitalists departed the Warfield building not too long ago because the neighborhood is so intense.

    It also speaks to where WeWork came from. They used to have two large spaces at Sixth and Market, and now they’ve focused on more corporate spaces, mostly in the financial district.

    1. I think they’re “focused” on sweeping up spare change that gets dropped in their lobbies…and rushing it to the bank…it’s likely one of their more steady sources of cash flow.

    2. “It also speaks to where WeWork came from.”

      You mean under the porch with all the other snakes?

      Thursday’s unorthodox “SPAC” IPO pump ‘n dump looks like good, clean fun.

  2. It’s a great site on a very safe block. Mid-Market retail, restaurants and cafes can’t return until these nearby offices—a key customer base–are filled.

    1. It’s a pretty unappealing location.

      (When one has to claim that “the block is very safe” as opposed to the general area, then you know it’s a terrible/dangerous place to be.)

      It only worked when there was an overwhelming shortage of office space.

      Since there is glut of such space into the foreseeable future, unless the price drops dramatically, I wouldn’t expect anyone to occupy that space for some time to come.

      1. True. Given that negative absorption continues, though at a lower pace – down to about 500K last quarter – it will take an awful long time to fill the 17 million plus feet. It is, frankly, hard to see how they do that w/o repurposing much of the space. And this at a time when 5 or so million feet of new lab/office space has recently been proposed in Brisbane, SSF and San Bruno. The office market is booming in the north Peninsula but not in SF.

        Two huge million foot projects on El Camino Real alone (one across the street from the See’s factory) geared to biotech space but made to be appealing for office use and to lure companies from SF were recently announced. SF officials seem oblivious to the ramifications and dynamic of the Bay Area office/jobs market. Of course they are pretty much oblivious to everything..

        1. Are they looking at Stripe and speculating for more prop C departures from the city? That’s my impression. As far as your comment about SF officials is concerned – agreed, they have their heads buried in the sand for sure. While the City and County could tide over on state and federal Covid support and real estate transfer taxes, another round of bailouts isn’t coming their way.

          1. In part that is a factor. The demand for bio-tech space is off the charts on the Peninsula too. The office space play is somewhat new and just this week YouTube got approval from San Bruno to add up to 2.5 million feet to its SB headquarters.

      2. Karl and Dave, the potential buyer for this place is not the same type of entity looking to sign a lease for commercial real estate, at least in the traditional office space sense. The buyer will most probably be some other co-working company. The people who will be the “end users” of this space will still end up paying a premium on a per square foot basis, because they don’t need a full office or they don’t want to be tied down in a long term lease.

        The developer’s web site has a link on it to a hagiographic Forbes piece about Adam Neumann and his partner, Miguel McKelvey, that makes for interesting reading more than six years after the fact, and after we all know what ultimately happened with WeWork’s IPO. But this part speaks to cfb’s point, above:

        City governments are all-in on the benefits that such spaces can bring to the local economy. In San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee rerouted police patrols and opened a precinct outpost in the ragged Tenderloin district to keep the WeWork members there safe.

        It goes on to say that “By February 2010, just one month after launch, WeWork turned its first profit and has never stopped”, of course, that was before they started taking money from SoftBank.

    2. By American big city standards, there is nothing “very safe” about the Tenderloin/mid-market, which is where this theater is located. It’s got some great things going on, but it is not an area known for safety, due to the high poverty rate, drug trade, etc. That’s some pretty basic Tenderloin knowledge.

  3. We had our office there for years.

    It’s was very scary and dangerous. Witnessed a stabbing, drug dealers on Turk, and you could hear constant screaming and chaos (and we were on the top floor).

  4. i can imagine anyone would take that space for office workers unless it is dirt cheap. Its just too dangerous now. the city has to clean up this area or other businesses will die permanently

      1. Do you have a source with more detail, or are you just inferring the obvious from the complete lack of activity at 6×6 since the announcement?

        1. Do a Goodle search. The store was supposed to open this fall but is being pushed back a year as IKEA re-evaluates it business model in a post pandemic world.

          1. So, according to you, the delay might be due to crime on that stretch of market street or it might be due to economic changes caused by the pandemic. Not sure that “says it all” but it says something.

  5. “activated and energized the district and paved the way for even more revitalization in the area, where creativity and the community can once again thrive.”

    “Activated”
    “Energized”
    “Revitalization”
    “Once Again Thrive”

    Racist pro-gentrification dog-whistling terms have run amok in the past few years and all marketed to iffy firms that have no chance of surviving a higher interest rate environment.

    1. Point made, but cmon. People are dying on the streets in this area every day. Some of this language is appropriate.

      Also, interest rates are never going back to anything above 5%.

  6. i think there are very few tech companies where the majority of workers will come back to the office 3 days per week

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