Square considers Oakland space that Uber abandoned.

San Francisco payments processor Square is looking to expand its offices around the country and has considered Oakland for a major leasing deal, according to two sources.

The tech company has looked at leasing the entire office portion of Oakland’s Uptown Station, according to the sources, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly. Uber had previously planned a major office in the building, a former Sears store at 1955 Broadway, but sold the property last year.

No deal has been signed. The building has about 300,000 square feet of office space, room for more than 2,000 employees.

“We're always exploring options to accommodate our continued growth. We have nothing to announce,” Square said. The company has signed leases in St. Louis and Atlanta this year on offices that can accommodate hundreds of employees.

A spokeswoman for CIM Group, owner of Uptown Station, said last month that it “does not comment on transactions that may or may

not occur."

A potential deal is evidence that the East Bay is becoming a growing magnet for tech tenants, who have historically concentrated their job growth in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

“There are large tech tenants looking at Uptown, but none have landed yet,” said Edward Del Beccaro, a managing director of Transwestern, a commercial real estate brokerage. He said the East Bay’s lower housing costs are pushing more tech employers to hire there.

“There's enough tech talent now” in the East Bay, said Del Beccaro, who isn’t involved in Uptown Station.

Square is seeking to expand as CEO Jack Dorsey, who also runs Twitter, has become a prominent opponent of Proposition C, San Francisco’s proposed tax increase on major corporations to fund homelessness services.

Dorsey has also said Twitter is looking to grow outside of San Francisco.

“We recognize that we need to decentralize our workforce out of San Francisco,” Dorsey told Congress at a hearing in September. “Not everyone wants to be in San Francisco. Not everyone wants to work in San Francisco. Not everyone can afford to even come close to living in San Francisco, and it’s not fair.”

Uber purchased the Uptown Station property in 2015 and planned a major office there, but sold the building at the end of 2017 to CIM Group. Uber is now focusing its growth in Mission Bay, where it has four adjacent office buildings under construction.

This year Square expanded by 104,135 square feet at 1455 Market St., where it now occupies a total of 469,056 square feet. Coincidentally, Uber’s current headquarters is also at 1455 Market St.