San Francisco online banking fintech Chime is nearing a deal to lease roughly 200,000 square feet at 101 California St., a 48-story Financial District high-rise, according to multiple sources with insight into the talks.
The deal, which would be the largest lease since the start of the pandemic if completed, would be in the skyscraper's adjacent podium, which has 191,833 square feet of available direct space across six consecutive floors, according to a listing by CBRE.
The podium is being marketed as a separate "building within a building.” The complex, completed in 1982, has about 1.2 million square feet of office space; tenants includes Bank of America, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley.
A spokesperson for Hines, which owns and operates 101 California, said the company had “no deal to comment on right now.” Sam Stein, a CBRE broker who handles leasing at 101 California, and a spokesperson for Chime declined to comment.
It is unclear if Chime is looking to relocate from its current headquarters at 77 Maiden Lane in Union Square — where it occupies about 45,000 square feet, according to Costar — or is expanding. So far, the company does not appear to have listed its current office space on the sublease market. It has about two years and 10 months remaining at that location.
Chime, founded in 2013, offers fee-free online banking services, including checking and savings accounts and debit cards. It recently agreed to stop calling itself a bank in a deal with California regulators.
In September, Chime boosted its valuation to $14.5 billion with a new $435 million Series F financing round. CEO Chris Britt told CNBC at the time that the cash infusion would help it move toward an eventual public market debut, adding that the company would be “IPO-ready” in 2021.
While many companies are reevaluating their real estate needs in a post-pandemic world — Splunk last week confirmed it wants to sublease close to 100,000 square feet at 250 Brannan St. — others are starting to take advantage of the growing office inventory and dropping rents.
Last week, design software unicorn Figma confirmed that it has leased 100,000 square feet at 760 Market St., the 11-story, triangular Phelan Building near Union Square, and Sigma Computing is said to have signed a lease for 54,000 square feet at 116 Montgomery St.
While numbers differ between the firms tracking office space in the city, Costar now reports that San Francisco’s sublease inventory exceeds a record-breaking 10 million square feet, accounting for 7.8% of the existing inventory.
Rentable square feet of office space
| Rank | Prior Rank | Building/Prior rank |
|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | Salesforce Tower, <br>415 Mission St. |
2 | 2 | 555 California St. |
3 | 3 | 101 California St. |