Block to Shut San Francisco HQ, Switch to Remote Workforce

Payments-processing firm Block, previously known as Square, is leaving behind the Market Street headquarters that had been the high-profile company’s San Francisco headquarters when its lease expires in September 2023, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday (June 15).

The main factor company executives gave for the decision, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, is that employees won’t be returning to traditional offices as COVID-19 restrictions end.

The space in the city’s Mid-Market district that Block is leaving totals about 470,000 square feet, according to published reports.

Block, according to reports, already had said it would no longer need a single headquarters location and that many employees were working from home.

The company reportedly issued a statement indicating it remained committed to the Bay Area. Block will keep two smaller San Francisco offices and set up hubs where employees who often work from home can gather, the Chronicle reported, and the company is keeping an office in Oakland.

According to Bloomberg, San Francisco’s occupancy rate for office space is among the country’s lowest for a major city. Moreover, Bloomberg reported, only about one third of employees who previously worked in offices in the city have returned.

Another San Francisco company, Twilio Inc., has said it will let employees who want to work from home and therefore is reducing its office use, according to the San Francisco Business Times.

Twitter, according to Bloomberg, had committed to expanding its office space in San Francisco even though employees can work from home “indefinitely.” Even that, however, could be in doubt if billionaire Elon Musk succeeds in his quest to buy the social media company.

See also: Voices of the CFO: Managing a Remote Workforce