SAN JOSE — San Jose officials hope the Bay Area’s largest city can extend a winning streak for landing tech companies and their headquarters, an aspiration bolstered by a recent Roku mega-lease.
This news organization reported Aug. 3 that Los Gatos-based Roku had signed a lease to move its headquarters to 472,000 square feet of offices at a San Jose campus near the city’s airport. Several other tech companies also have signed leases this year to relocate major operations to San Jose — in some cases even their headquarters.
“We’re thrilled to welcome an innovative industry leader like Roku to San Jose,” Mayor Sam Liccardo said in emailed comments. “This headquarters move by Roku extends our extraordinary hot streak of high-profile announcements from leading companies that recognize the extraordinary opportunity that San Jose offers for attracting talent and scaling growth.”
Roku’s deal in the Coleman Highline complex, detailed in a Securities and Exchange Commission regulatory filing, enables it to move into several buildings in the project. The square footage could accommodate 2,100 or more Roku employees.
8×8, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Bloom Energy and Micron Technology also struck deals this year to relocate major operations to San Jose.
Like Roku, 8×8, HPE and Bloom are all shifting their headquarters to San Jose. Idaho-based Micron Technology is moving large operations from Milpitas to San Jose, but is keeping its headquarters in Boise.
Separately, Adobe Systems is actively working on a plan to expand its three-building downtown San Jose headquarters by adding a fourth office tower at an adjacent property.
Nearby, Google plans a transit-oriented community of offices, residences, stores, restaurants and open spaces where 15,000 to 20,000 of its employees would eventually work near the Diridon train station in downtown San Jose.
“Tech companies are starting to figure out the increasing benefits of putting jobs near where people live,” said Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy, a land-use and planning consultancy. “Most of the employees of a lot of these companies live in San Jose.”
Locating jobs near workers’ homes could have multiple advantages.
“It’s better for employee morale and it’s better for traffic,” Staedler said.
In the latest big win for San Jose, Roku leased two full office buildings at 1167 Coleman and 1173 Coleman; half of a third office building at 1155 Coleman; and all of an amenities building at 1161 Coleman, the SEC documents show.
Roku also is eyeing potential future expansions in three other buildings in the project, depending on availability, according to the documents.
The complex is owned by Hunter Properties, which is also developing the property. The lease was arranged through Newmark Knight Frank brokers Phil Mahoney, Jeffrey Rodgers and Andy Hueser, and CBRE brokers Jeff Houston and Mike Benevento.
“San Jose is well-positioned to get more of these deals, and we will see more of them,” Staedler said.
