Macromedia Acquiring Three SoMa Properties for Permanent HQ

SAN FRANCISCO-Macromedia is in the process of acquiring two buildings and a parking structure across from its existing leased headquarters in the South of Market area of the city. The properties are to become the software maker’s new permanent headquarters.

The three properties are: the 210,000-sf Baker & Hamilton building at 601 Townsend St.; 625 Townsend St., a recently completed 53,000-sf building adjacent to the Baker & Hamilton building; and 650 King St., a recently completed six-story parking garage that serves these two buildings. Macromedia on Monday completed its acquisition of 625 Townsend St. and 650 King St. and expects to close on the Baker & Hamilton building before April 2004. The combined purchase price is $55 million.

The company says the acquisitions are being driven by the desire to create a permanent home for its employees and by attractive real estate prices due to current market conditions. The new facilities, which total 210,000 sf, will house Macromedia’s corporate, marketing, and research and development staffs, which will begin migrating to the new headquarters in the latter half of 2004.

About 600 of Macromedia’s 1,100 employees are based in the city. The company leases 271,000-sf in three SoMa buildings (99 Rhode Island, 600 Townsend and 650 Townsend) but only occupies about 225,000 sf, according to Macromedia’s VP of Real Estate Jim Morgensen. “We’ve got a couple of spaces subleased and a couple vacant,” he tells GlobeSt.com. “The excess space is from a consolidation we did a couple of years ago.”

The leases for most of the company’s existing space run out in 2005, says Morgensen. Given the amount of space available in SoMa, Morgensen says the chance of finding sublease tenants is ” pretty remote.” Instead, Morgensen says Macromedia will time the build out of the new space to match the termination dates on its existing leases.

Build out of the Baker & Hamilton building will take about a year and will not begin until the acquisition closes escrow, which could be next spring. Improvements to 625 Hamilton will kick off “pretty soon” and be available for occupancy in “about a year.” The company will improve of occupy the second floor of 625 for sometime however, as it is leased by a third party until 2010.