Dec 8, 2023

Need office space - Pixar is willing to lease an extra building.

The animation landscape in California is changing, and in the latest major shakeup, Pixar is looking to rent 16,800 square feet of newly renovated office space in the Emery Building across the street from its main campus.

In spring 2022, Pixar will begin renting 12,800 square feet of office space at 1201 Park Avenue, and in December 2022, according to the San Francisco Business Times, the company will demolish non-bearing walls, make power, data, and lighting infrastructure improvements, and build new office space, and applied for improvements to the facility, including the construction of new offices.

The company invested $3.6 million in the renovations, expanding the office space to 16,800 square feet. However, no Pixar employees ever occupied the space.

This June, Pixar laid off about 75 employees, the largest layoff at the studio in more than a decade.

According to the agency, the two-story site is available for immediate occupancy and features open collaboration spaces on both floors, an open-air entrance with high ceilings, roll-up doors for easy access, and an enclosed atrium with high ceilings.

Pixar's headquarters moved from Richmond to the Emeryville in 2000. Pixar headquarters moved from Richmond to the Emeryville in 2000 and now operates a 430,000 square foot campus that includes a swimming pool, soccer field, basketball court, and statues of Pixar's most famous characters.

Pixar is not the only company looking to sell off unwanted real estate in the Bay Area; technology giants including Adobe, Dropbox, and Salesforce are all scaling back, and according to the San Francisco Business Times, in the third quarter of this year more than 1.3 million square feet of real estate was listed for sublease. This is the highest amount since the pandemic began.

Warner Bros. Discovery closed its iconic Cartoon Network studio in Burbank, and Skydance Animation launched a 5.8-acre facility in Santa Monica.