Facebook, which closed a temporary recruiting office in downtown Vancouver a year ago, is roaring back into the city.
The social media giant has leased more than 36,000 square feet at 200 Burrard Street in Cadillac Fairview’s Waterfront Centre.
Facebook’s space will accommodate the growing needs of its business, a spokesperson for the company told Western Investor.
A cloak of confidentially agreements covers the Facebook agreement, but Western Investor has learned it will take the fourth and fifth floors in the 21-storey Waterfront Centre tower. Facebook’s new office is expected to open late in 2018.
This news follows Amazon's plans to open a second office of 150,000 square feet in the new Oxford tower at the southwest corner of Dunsmuir and Homer Streets. Amazon is expected to add 1,000 new tech jobs to the city.
Tech companies now dominate downtown Vancouver office demand, accounting for more than half of the office leases in the past year.
Robin Buntain, an office-leasing specialist with Avison Young in Vancouver, said the leasing action by big tech players is due to more than location and local talent.
The low value of the Canadian loony compared to the U.S. dollar, he noted, makes Vancouver offices less expensive than San Francisco. But Buntain cautioned that if tech demand continues to accelerate, leasing rates for top-class Vancouver office space would inevitably increase.
