Electric vehicle manufacturing firm NIO USA has signed a 201,500-square-foot lease with Zanker Road Partners, an affiliate of Oakmont Corporation, at 3151 Zanker Road in North San Jose. The office will serve as the firms headquarters office and it's research and innovation center, which includes research and digital development, testing, assembly, warehousing and operations. NIO signed a 10-year lease term at the office.

Following the pandemic, San Jose has attracted healthy office demand from technology companies, like NIO. In May, a report from Marcus & Millichap predicted that stability in tech sector jobs will pave the way for new hiring in secondary positions, ultimately supporting recovery in the market's office sector with the creation of 41,900 new jobs created this year in the San Jose market, with payrolls increasing by 3.9%. Several companies are playing a role in the job growth. During the pandemic, tech companies retained a large share of their staff, and office-using companies were able to maintain staff levels within 1% of pre-recession numbers at the end of the first quarter this year.

Last year, global cloud-led, data-centric software company NetApp Inc. was among the major tech companies to sign a lease deal in the market. In April, the firm secured a long-term 301,019-square-foot lease within Federal Realty Investment Trust's mixed-use complex, Santana Row in San Jose, CA. The company has additionally sold its 21.5-acre, 702,193-square-foot, Sunnyvale Campus to New York-based, Tishman Speyer.