Twitter has appointed JLL to advise on options for a relocation of its London offices after a high-profile spat with landlord the Crown Estate over unpaid rent, CoStar News can reveal.
The social media giant is marketing for potential sublease 84,000 square feet on floors one, three and six at 20 Air Street. The space is already understood to be drawing strong interest according to London office advisers, and Twitter may stay put in about 20,000 square feet or relocate entirely elsewhere in London.
The Crown is separately marketing 28,000 square feet across floors two and four at the building via Bluebook and Knight Frank. The instructions mean there is an opportunity for a single company to lease more than 100,000 square foot at the prime office in the Crown's London estate.
Earlier this year it emerged the Crown Estate, the King's property company, had filed a claim against Twitter over alleged unpaid rent at the building. The matter has now been settled.
CoStar News first reported on the potential dispute between the independent property company of the reigning British monarch and the world's richest man over unpaid office rent last year.
According to reports that first surfaced in the New York Times, in an effort to cut costs following Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, the social media company stopped paying rent at its global offices and its San Francisco headquarters while Musk’s team tried to renegotiate the terms of its leases.
Musk has been taking increasingly severe measures to cut costs and make the social media platform more profitable, he says.
The move to restructure its leases follows a more general office scaleback by tech giants in the United States, with Meta dropping plans for major offices in its home country, Dublin and London.
CoStar News revealed in December 2020 that Twitter, thesocial media group then best known for its pithy update platform, had committed to its London headquarters by regearing its lease and increasing the space by around a third.
The news was a big lift for the London office occupancy market in the middle of the pandemic, particularly as Twitter had hit the headlines that May when chief executive Jack Dorsey had said its employees would be allowed to work from home “forever” in a widely reported company-wide email.
Twitter first agreed to a deal at the tail end of 2013 to move to the Crown Estate and Norges’s Air W1. It paid £76.18 per square foot on a 10-year lease in transactions that saw it ultimately take 27,733 square feet on the first floor and 24,468 square feet on the sixth floor at the office development near Piccadilly Circus.
In December 2020 it agreed to regear the lease on this space and take 30,924 square feet on the third floor to take its occupancy to around 83,000 square feet.
The Air W1 development by the Crown with Stanhope comprises 180,000 square feet of offices just off Regent Street.
DeVono Cresa advised Twitter on that deal. The Crown was advised by CBRE.
The Crown looks after a 10 million-square-foot portfolio including some of London's most celebrated retail and leisure pitches on behalf of King Charles III.
According to Bloomberg, in February Tesla CEO Musk returned to the top seat as the world's richest man after briefly being replaced by Bernard Arnault, CEO of French luxury brand LVMH.
Twitter and JLL declined to comment.