Guardant Health makes deal for offices
Palo Alto space enough to accommodate 1,200 workers, pre-pandemic
PALO ALTO >> Guardant Health, a major player in cutting-edge blood tests for cancer, has struck a deal for a major office lease in Palo Alto, fresh evidence of the long-term health of the Silicon Valley office market despite the coronavirus.
The Silicon Valley company has leased 250,000 square feet at 3000 Hanover St. in a Palo Alto project owned by veteran Bay Area developer Sand Hill Property Co.
Guardant Health’s lease at 3000 Hanover was confirmed Thursday by Sand Hill Property Co., which also confirmed the tenant’s name and the amount of space that was rented by Guardant.
The lease was arranged through brokers David Hiebert and Steve Bouret of commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield and broker Mark Moser of commercial real estate company Savills. Terms weren’t disclosed.
Office space of this size would be large enough to accommodate 1,200 workers using space requirements per employee that
were typical in the precoronavirus era. It wasn’t immediately clear what sort of distancing protocols might be in place once Guardant moves into its new offices.
The transaction provides some hopeful signs for the health of the Silicon Valley office market, even in a time when economic uncertainties have become widespread due to the coronavirus.
“Even though the market in Silicon Valley has been slower than usual by a long shot, the first places to actually recover from a market like this are the epicenters of Silicon Valley, which are Palo Alto and Mountain View,” said Dave Sandlin, an executive vice president with Colliers International, a commercial real estate firm.
It wasn’t immediately clear when Guardant might move into the new Palo Alto offices.
At present, Guardant has its headquarters in Redwood City. The building the company now occupies totals roughly 82,000 square feet, according to a Loopnet post. That suggests the Palo Alto offices will provide Guardant with a lot more elbow room.
Guardant uses an array of technologies, including blood tests, huge data sets, and advanced analytics to learn all it can about specific cancers.
“We believe the key to conquering cancer is unprecedented access to its molecular information throughout all stages of the disease,” Guardant states on its web site. “We are developing a solution through tests that require only a blood sample.”
The rental deal with Guardant marks the second big lease in Palo Alto that Sand Hill Property Co. has pulled off with a local company this year.
Kodiak Sciences, a creator of treatments for eye diseases, leased 155,000 square feet on Page Mill Road near Hanover Street in Palo Alto, according to regulatory filings the company posted in June.
The leasing activity in Palo Alto could portend widening interest in renting space in the South Bay, in Sandlin’s view.
“Palo Alto is always the last one to fall into a slump and the first one to rebound,” Sandlin said. “You usually see recovery happen first in Palo Alto and Mountain View and then spread to the rest of Silicon Valley.”