In late 2014, Google bought six buildings totaling some 934,000 square feet at the Pacific Shores tech campus, part of an ambitious expansion in its home Silicon Valley region as demand for its innovative tech products soared.
Eleven years on, the market temperature has plummeted, and the tech giant continues efforts to reverse that overheated expansion of more than a decade ago. This week it put three buildings with a total of around 350,000 square feet in the sprawling Redwood City complex up for lease, according to marketing materials sent out to industry professionals by CBRE.
Google paid around $585 million for the buildings when it bought them in 2014, or a little over $600 per square foot, a purchase that was celebrated as the tech behemoth’s single largest ever real estate acquisition in the region. But the firm has quietly shuttered many of those offices following widespread cutbacks after the pandemic and the widespread shift to remote work.
Google has added 1200, 1700 and 1800 Seaport Blvd. to the sublease market, after previously looking for takers for three buildings at the complex totaling some 600,000 square feet. All told, the firm has now given up nearly 950,000 square feet at the 1.7 million-square-foot project spanning 10 buildings.
A life science building in the complex, 1500 Seaport, which is owned by investment firm DivcoWest, is also newly for lease. In total, some 1.1 million square feet are available in the mostly vacant complex, according to CBRE.
The project was built by Jay Paul Co. in the early 2000s and noted for its sleek glass office buildings overlooking scenic wetlands and its swanky amenities, which include a swimming pool, sports fields and courts and a full-service health club. Officials have proposed building a ferry terminal nearby that they hope complete in several years to offer connections to the East Bay and San Francisco.
Similar to other tech companies around the world, Google has been on an aggressive cutting spree since the beginning of 2023, subleasing, leasing or selling space. The cuts have reversed a decade of expansion that was fueled by soaring demand for its products and services, leading the company to lease, develop or acquire large swaths of space to accommodate its record head count growth. Google said last year in a regulatory filing that it would save $640 million by cutting back on office real estate.
The reductions have continued even as the company has followed in the footsteps of other big firms in recent months, requiring employees to work in the office at least three days per week.
As of the second quarter of 2025, Redwood City — about halfway between San Francisco and San Jose — reported an annual net absorption of minus 190,000 square feet, one of the lowest figures in the metro area, according to CoStar, largely due to Google's previous departure from two buildings at Pacific Shores. The vacancy rate in Redwood City stands at 23.3%, aligning with the metro average.