Tesla may have relocated its global headquarters to Texas and publicly battled regulators in its former hometown, but the electric vehicle maker isn't severing ties with California. Rather, the manufacturer is doubling down on growth.
The company, now based in Austin, is expanding its San Francisco Bay Area footprint following a deal it signed with industrial powerhouse Prologis for a chunk of warehouse space in Hayward, California. The automotive and clean energy company leased roughly 148,525 square feet at 22290 Hathaway Ave., a warehouse about 20 miles north of Tesla's largest manufacturing hub in Fremont.
The deal arrives on the heels of Tesla CEO Elon Musk's decision earlier this year to establish its global engineering and artificial intelligence headquarters in Silicon Valley's Palo Alto.
The move was largely viewed as an about-face for the company, which has long had a combative relationship with California regulators that ultimately resulted in Tesla's corporate relocation to Austin in 2021.
Even with the exodus, which Musk previously attributed to the "limit to how big you can scale in the Bay Area,” Tesla's real estate footprint in the area has only expanded over the past couple of years.
The manufacturer leased just shy of 320,000 square feet for its global engineering headquarters at 3000 Hanover St., taking over space at the former headquarters for computer maker Hewlett-Packard in the Stanford Research Park.
Since moving to Austin, Tesla has also leased 10 acres of undeveloped land in Lathrop; signed on for another 325,000 square feet of office space at the Palo Alto research park; and taken over a roughly 76,500-square-foot research and development property at 2711 N. First St. in San Jose.
Tesla has yet to make public its plans for the Hayward property. Representatives for the vehicle maker did not immediately respond to CoStar News' requests for comment.
The lease means Tesla will take up half of the 297,050-square-foot Hayward property. The other half is still available for lease, according to Prologis marketing materials. The San Francisco-based logistics landlord acquired the Hathaway facility in 2018 as part of its $8.5 billion acquisition of industrial real estate company DCT Industrial Trust.
Tesla leases or owns roughly 32 million square feet of real estate globally, according to CoStar data, more than 80% of which is warehouse and manufacturing space.
For the Record
KBC Advisors’ Sam Higgins and Tom Damaschino, who shared the listing with Cushman & Wakefield’s Jeff Starkovich, brokered the deal on Prologis' behalf.