When SurveyMonkey Inc. agreed in August to move its headquarters to San Mateo’s Bay Meadows, the company cast an important vote for the experiment in building urban-style tech campuses in the middle of the suburbs.
Bay Meadows owner Stockbridge Capital Group and developer Wilson Meany had taken a gamble by breaking ground in 2014 on Bay Meadows Station 4, a 210,000-square-foot, Class A office building, with no tenant signed.
The online software firm became the first corporate tenant for the 83-acre neighborhood. Bay Meadows 4 is the first of five proposed office buildings with a total of 780,000 square feet to be built steps from the Caltrain station. The developers began construction on a second office building with 174,000 square feet at the end of last year.
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The deal positions other Bay Meadows office space as suitable for technology companies. It also validates the location as a viable competitor in the string of urban districts now emerging near Caltrain transit stations.
Keeping good talent and attracting more ranked first when the company set out to find “a new habitat,” Tim Maly, SurveyMonkey’s COO and CFO, said in an email. Good transit and available housing onsite were a big plus. SurveyMonkey has about 400 Bay Area employees that it plans to move to San Mateo in early 2017.
Neither party disclosed the lease terms, but average asking rent for San Mateo is $55 a foot, according to Jones Lang LaSalle.
More than 700 people live in Bay Meadows now, said Wilson Meany partner Janice Thacher. About 40 percent of them ride Caltrain every day.
Thacher said when employers “are trying to recruit employees in a really competitive market, having Caltrain access is a big deal.”
SurveyMonkey at Bay Meadows station 4
Location: 3050 S. Delaware St., San Mateo
Size: 210,000 square feet
Tenant: SurveyMonkey Inc.
Landlord: Stockbridge Capital Group/Wilson Meany
Landlord Brokers: Josh Rowell, Bob Garner, Jack Troedsen of Newmark Cornish & Carey
Tenant brokers: David Hiebert and Colin Feichtmeir of Cushman & Wakefield
Contractor: Webcor
Architect: HOK
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