SAN JOSE — A tech giant under increased scrutiny has moved into offices in San Jose where the company could employ hundreds — if not thousands — after closing a mega real estate deal in Silicon Valley. Valley.
TikTok app owner ByteDance has moved into a large office complex part of the mixed-use Coleman Highline tech campus in San Jose across from the city’s airport, city officials and the watch say. directly by this press organization from the company’s workplace.
Chinese company ByteDance entered into an agreement circa September 2022 to sublet 658,000 square feet of new office space that encompasses the entirety of two buildings at 1193 and 1199 Coleman Avenue in San Jose.
That’s potentially enough office space to accommodate 2,600 to 3,900 workers, based on typical space ratios for employees in modern office sites. The sublease was one of the biggest rental deals of 2022 in Silicon Valley.
The tech giant’s TikTok app is a social media platform that allows users to host videos that can last anywhere from a few seconds to 10 minutes. The TikTok owner is also believed to be making inroads into e-commerce on the platform, which has over a billion users, including many high-profile celebrities.
“ByteDance has a leading platform that the community, youth and many others are very engaged in using,” said Nanci Klein, director of economic development for San Jose. “We welcome ByteDance to San Jose.”
The company comes to San Jose with controversy and scrutiny as it faces increased scrutiny and concern from federal lawmakers and regulators.
In June 2022, a member of the Federal Communications Commission called on Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores due to US concerns. ByteDance is under pressure to allow Chinese government or Chinese Communist Party officials access to sensitive data of TikTok users. .
Two US senators, Mark Warner (D-Virginia) and Marco Rubio (R-Florida), in July 2022 urged the Federal Trade Commission to investigate ByteDance and TikTok over allegations of inappropriate surveillance and access by agencies Chinese governments.
ByteDance responded shortly after that it was taking steps to ensure the data was protected.
“We’re looking at who has access (and why they need it) and where those people are as two critical elements of our security protocols,” Michael Beckerman, ByteDance’s public policy manager, Americas, said in a post. of blogging. “Minimizing employee access to US user data and minimizing data transfers between regions, including to China” were among the company’s goals, Beckerman added.
Despite these uncertainties, it’s clear that ByteDance has become a major addition to San Jose’s patchwork of businesses.
The company’s arrival also ends a revolving door of companies that were to occupy the space.
In 2019, Verizon Media leased the buildings, and the property developer broke ground on the massive new addition to the Coleman Highline tech campus. Verizon Media intended to employ approximately 3,400 people in the two office buildings.
After that, Verizon decided to relocate its Yahoo subsidiary to the Coleman Highline site, a relocation that took on some urgency after Google bought Yahoo’s Sunnyvale headquarters and other buildings for $1 billion.
At one point, a large Yahoo sign was perched prominently on the roofline of one of the office buildings.
In 2021, however, those plans were scrapped after Verizon sold Yahoo to a private equity firm. Verizon then sought to sublet the Coleman Highline space since neither Verizon nor Yahoo would be moving into the site.
Despite the changing options for site occupancy, it’s clear the office buildings were deemed valuable as they were fully leased long-term due to Verizon’s initial lease in 2019.
In 2021, AGC Equity Partners, a London-based investment firm, paid $780 million for the two buildings, one of the biggest dollar real estate purchases that year in the Bay Area.
Now, a ByteDance sign is located at one of the main entrances to the ByteDance section of the Coleman Highline campus. People can be seen driving in and out of the employee parking lot next to the ByteDance offices.
Coleman Highline is now fully occupied and has significant technology anchors operating at the site. In addition to ByteDance’s sublease, streaming media titan Roku leased several buildings a few years ago. Hotel rooms and housing are also being added to the Coleman Highline campus.
“The vision of having over a million square feet of development right across from the airport, at the entrance to downtown San Jose, really worked,” Klein said.