Meta Pulls Back On New 310K SF London Office

Tech giant Meta won’t occupy a new 310K SF London office for which it signed a lease just last year. 

The parent company of Facebook will now look to sublease the space at 1 Triton Square near Euston, React News reported. 

The 1 Triton Square scheme is owned by British Land, from which Meta leases 146K SF at nearby 10 Brock Street. Both buildings are part of the REIT’s Regent’s Place campus.

Meta announced it was cutting 11,000 jobs, or about 13% of its workforce, in November, a month after saying it would pull out of some of its office leases and spend about $2B cutting back on office space this year. 

The company paused the fit-out of a new office in Dublin in July. In Mountain View, California, the tech giant ended a two-building, 457K SF lease earlier this year. Meta also confirmed to Bisnow it was backing out of a 200K SF Manhattan lease earlier this month after previously saying it was putting other New York office expansion plans on ice.

Meta has cut its staff because it made big losses on investment into the metaverse. Those investments have yet to pay off. 

Other big tech companies have backed out of offices, too, as their revenues have dropped sharply.

Lyft revealed in August it was looking to sublease nearly half of its office holdings across San Francisco, New York City, Seattle and Nashville, Tennessee. And Yelp said in June it was closing offices in New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C. 

In London, React reported rents have gone up in the Euston area since Meta took its lease last year, which will make it easier for the company to sublease the space. 

Meta moved into a new 620K SF office at King’s Cross in April. Its 9,000 UK staff will now work from this building and Brock Street.