Here is a SF gate story that talks about high-tech growth.
“The technology industry is playing the white knight of San Francisco’s struggling office market, as startups and growing companies ink deals and scour the market for space emptied out by the financial meltdown.
Many of the tenants are swelling homegrown businesses like Twitter, while others are relocating from Silicon Valley or outside the Bay Area. As of June 15, 83 technology companies were in the market, seeking 1.5 million square feet of space, up 51 percent since the financial crash in fall 2008, according to brokerage firm Jones Lang LaSalle, which regularly tracks the market.
To be sure, that demand alone won’t turn around a market facing more than 13 million square feet of total vacancy, according to a first-quarter research report from Cassidy Turley BT Commercial. But it’s a big step in the right direction for San Francisco’s office market and employment.
“The greatest areas of job growth in San Francisco and the drivers for economic activity across a whole host of related sectors will come from those innovative industries,” said Michael Cohen, director of the mayor’s office of economic development.
One of the largest potential deals in the market is Zynga, the maker of popular social-networking games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars. The company is looking for anywhere from 150,000 square feet to 300,000 square feet of space, according to various industry sources, who asked to remain anonymous because disclosure of such information could affect their business.
Zynga was on the verge of signing a lease for approximately 140,000 square feet last fall, but that deal fell apart.
“Zynga doesn’t have an update on our expansion plans right now,” a spokeswoman said in an e-mail response to a Chronicle inquiry.
Expansion
Twitter, the popular microblogging service, expanded its San Francisco space by nearly six times in the past year. It had been looking for still more space, as much as an additional 100,000 square feet, but that effort seems to have gone quiet, sources say.
An especially encouraging trend for San Francisco business boosters, who have long lamented the exodus of companies to surrounding regions, is the relocation of a handful of Silicon Valley firms to the city in recent months.
Industry blog TechCrunch and video-streaming site MetaCafe moved up from Palo Alto, while Webcasting service Ustream and tech-consulting firm Encover Inc. arrived from Mountain View. Mobile application company Booyah Inc., also of Palo Alto, recently signed a lease to shift its headquarters to San Francisco.
In addition, gaming companies like Playdom Inc. and Playfish opened satellite offices in San Francisco, and Yammer Inc. moved to the city from Los Angeles. Meanwhile, there are a handful of out-of-state, and even out-of-country, companies touring space in the market right now, sources say.
Real estate and technology observers believe San Francisco is becoming a more attractive place to start a company or move to for a variety of reasons, including: South of Market rents that are about half of Palo Alto’s right now, the desire to cluster near success stories like Zynga and Twitter and the broader shift to the Web 2.0 world.
As Internet companies become as focused on social media and entertainment as they are on underlying technology, they want to locate near a different set of partners, customers and talent pools, several executives said.
It’s all about layering
“Tech is still the core of what we do, but you’ve got to add layers on top of this,” said David Rice, chief operating officer of MetaCafe Inc.
The company’s new address, at 128 King St., with exposed brick and a view of AT&T Park that puts their previous business-park space to shame, made it easier to tap into marketing, media and advertising expertise in the city, he said.
Other companies’ leaders say they opted for San Francisco because that’s where today’s engineering talent wants to be as well.
When David Sacks, chief executive of Yammer, asked his developers whether they should relocate the microblogging service for businesses to Palo Alto or San Francisco, the latter won hands down. This represents a distinct shift from a decade earlier when he was chief operating officer of PayPal in Palo Alto.
“There’s a lot more engineering talent living in San Francisco now,” he said. “The balance of power may have shifted.”
Web 2.0 firms also don’t need the massive research and development facilities required by the computer manufacturers and chipmakers that gave rise to Silicon Valley.
“Companies like Twitter can have incredible reach with a relatively small workforce,” said Kelly Pretzer, director of new media for the mayor’s office of economic development. “San Francisco has been able to complement that development in the industry nicely.”
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