Lightner Secures AI Company Lease in San Francisco

August 5, 2025

Brokerage News Office San Francisco More West

Newmark brokered the full-floor deal.

An image of 612 Howard Street, taken from the road in front of the building. — 612 Howard St. was constructed in 1907, restored in 1998 and underwent a cosmetic renovation this year. *Image courtesy of Millenium Play, LLC.*

Greenlite AI has signed a full-floor lease at 612 Howard St., a historic office building in San Francisco. Newmark brokered the deal.

Yardi Research Data lists the owner of the building as Lightner Property Group.

Constructed in 1907 and restored in 1998, 612 Howard St. contains six stories of about 10,000 square feet each. The building also underwent a cosmetic renovation in 2025, according to Yardi Research Data.

The property is located between 2nd Street and New Montgomery Street, two blocks away from Moscone Center and close to transit options including Bart, Muni, CalTrain, and highways 101 and 280.

AI firms driving office demand in San Francisco

San Francisco’s office market continues to stabilize following the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last quarter, new leasing in San Francisco reached its highest level since before the pandemic, according to a report from Cushman & Wakefield.

Greenlite’s lease is the latest example of the AI boom leading to new office leases in the Bay Area. Databricks, an AI and data analytics company, recently leased an entire 305,000-square-foot building in Sunnyvale, Calif., from Hunter Partners and Sares Regis Group. And last year, Nation, another AI startup, leased 105,000 square feet across five floors within Brookfield Properties’ Monadnock Building in San Francisco.

But while the area has seen a growing number of AI startups leasing space in recent months and years, a November 2024 report from Newmark found that AI firms were taking a cautious approach to their office space needs. Leases from AI firms tended to lean toward three years—below the average of five years or more for regular firms—and 61 percent of AI leases in San Francisco were reported to be subleases.