Meta Bails on Hudson Yards Office Space

Social media giant Meta has declined an option to renew leases encompassing 250K SF at Manhattan’s Hudson Yards when they expire in 2024 as part of a reduction in the Facebook parent’s workforce.

Meta will vacate its space at 30 and 55 Hudson Yards, two skyscrapers owned by Related Cos. in the massive West Side development, according to a report in Bloomberg.

When it was in a much more expansive mode, Meta agreed in 2019 to rent more than 1.5M SF in three new towers at Hudson Yards, with most of the space earmarked for 50 Hudson Yards.

The tech giant also leases about 730K SF at the redeveloped Farley Building—formerly NYC’s central post office—across from Penn Station.

In July, Meta said it was halting its plans to further build out its space at 50 Hudson Yards, a build out it was expecting to complete next year. The company also offered a small amount of that space for sublease.

In its Q3 earnings report, Meta said it would be taking a $2B write-down reflecting the consolidation of its offices and existing footprint. Earlier this year, the social media giant backed out a deal to add 300K of space at 770 Broadway and vacated offices at 225 Park Ave.

With its stock price collapsing in recent weeks as Mark Zuckerberg implores investors to patiently await the dawning of the Metaverse—losing almost three-quarters of its value and putting an estimated $71B dent in Zuckerberg’s personal e-wallet—Meta has been shrinking its office footprint all over the US.

Last month, the Facebook parent announced it will not occupy a 589K SF lease it signed in January for all of the office space in what will become Austin’s tallest building when it opens next year, a 1.14M, 66-story mixed-use tower at 400 West Sixth Street being developed by Lincoln Property.

Meta, which has said it is “evaluating” its real estate portfolio globally, will sublease the space in the Austin tower. Meta had promised to take the first 33 floors of the new building, which will feature 349 apartments in its top half, as well as 10K of ground-floor retail.

In October, a two-building Silicon Valley office campus—which has been occupied by a parade of high-profile tech players for more than five years—went back on the market in the wake of Meta’s termination of a 457K SF lease on the campus.

WeWork is listing a pair of adjacent six-story office buildings at 391 and 401 San Antonio Road in Mountain View, according to Colliers latest Silicon Valley market report.

LinkedIn was the original tenant of the office campus, developed by Merlone Grier Partners. After Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in 2016, the lease on the campus—running until 2029–traded to flex office pioneer WeWork, which then leased the complex to the company formerly known as Facebook.

The Mountain View office campus is owned by Brookfield Properties.

According to Colliers, Meta exercised its opt-out clause earlier this year and vacated the 218K SF building at 401 San Antonio in the second quarter, and then left its larger twin in the third quarter.