Brookfield Properties Inks 105 KSF Relocation in San Francisco

The AI company will occupy five floors for the next decade.

The Monadnock Building is a historic office building in San Francisco.
The Monadnock Building came online in 1906 and was fully restored in 2016. Image courtesy of CommercialEdge

AI-powered company Notion has signed a 105,000-square-foot, 10-year lease at The Monadnock Building, the San Francisco Business Times reported. Brookfield Properties owns the 204,625-square-foot office building in San Francisco’s South Financial District submarket.

The tenant will occupy five floors at the 10-story property, with the option to expand its footprint, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. This new agreement will replace and expand Notion’s current headquarters, a 65,000-square-foot location at 2300 Harrison St., in the Mission District, the same source shows.

The Monadnock Building was last occupied by Uber, which put more than 110,000 square feet up for sublease in 2019, alongside three other downtown properties it occupied at the time, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Other notable tenants include Bluestone Lane, Cornerstone Demo and LensCrafters.

CBRE brokered the deal on behalf of the tenant, while JLL represented the landlord.


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Brookfield Properties picked-up the historic building in 2013 for $80 million from seller PGIM Real Estate, CommercialEdge shows.

Completed in 1906, the office mid-rise includes four passenger elevators, 20,000-square-foot floorplates and 9,000 square feet of street retail space. Under its current ownership, the property went through a restoration and improvement strategy in 2016, with more than $25 million in investment.

The Monadnock Building now includes a replaced roof, modernized elevators and retail storefronts, operable windows, a building automation system, a revitalized lobby and an atrium with a courtyard. Additionally, the office building received LEED Gold and WELL Health & Safety certifications.

Located at 685 Market St., the property is close to multiple bus and light rail stops while allowing easy access to the Union Square and to the Financial District areas. South San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., are 10 miles away each, while San Francisco International Airport is 14 miles south.

CBRE Executive Vice President Luke Ogelsby and Senior Vice President Sarah Kelley represented the tenant. Managing Director Jak Churton, Vice President Charlie Hanafin and Senior Managing Director Matt Shewey with JLL negotiated on behalf of the landlord.

The highest rents in the West

San Francisco office real estate trends show that the vacancy rate continues to remain high, reaching 27.6 percent in September, up 350 basis points year-over-year, according to a recent CommercialEdge office report. The average asking rent of $67.32 per square foot remained the highest among Western markets, almost matching the national leader Manhattan, which clocked in at $67.93 per square foot.

In May, Google announced that the company is giving up 300,000 square feet of space at One Market Plaza next April, when the lease will expire. The 1.6 million-square-foot office complex is owned by Paramount Group and Blackstone.