Salesforce Purchases San Francisco’s 50 Fremont St. from TIAA-CREF

 By Scott Baltic, Contributing Editor

The tech company that, just a few months ago, signed the largest office lease in San Francisco history has now agreed to what reportedly is the largest occupier deal in the city’s history. Salesforce, the world’s leading customer relationship management company, will purchase 50 Fremont St. from TIAA-CREF, which had acquired the 41-story, 817,000-square-foot Class A building in 2005.

The price in this latest sale was not disclosed.

The tower, where Salesforce already leases 500,000 square feet, is adjacent to the Transbay Terminal, now under construction in the SoMa district and scheduled for completion in 2017.

Salesforce’s announcement noted that the company currently leases more than 60 percent of the available space in 50 Fremont and will, once the purchase closes, have the option to take additional space as it becomes available.

Already San Francisco’s largest tech employer (more than 5,000 employees in the Bay Area, or more than 15,000 worldwide), Salesforce reportedly has hired more than 1,100 employees there so far this year and is on track to have more than 2 million square feet of office space in San Francisco by 2017.

Cushman & Wakefield’s San Francisco office advised Salesforce on the 50 Fremont transaction, assisted by senior director Grant Lammersen, who works for the firm’s Capital Markets Group in Northern California.

50 Fremont has undergone renovations in the last several years, according to Cushman, including lobby improvements, completion of a redesigned plaza and retail area, new landscaping and seating areas for outdoor restaurants in the plaza, which connects First and Fremont streets.

Cushman vice chairman Dan Harvey led the team that earlier this year represented Salesforce in the largest office lease in San Francisco history, taking 30 floors and 714,000 square feet at Salesforce Tower, formerly known as 415 Mission St.

Evidently believing (with substantial justification) that it’s hard to track all of Salesforce’s space in San Francisco, an article last April on sfgate.com listed the nine relevant buildings as One California, One Market, Rincon Center, 123 Mission St., 350 Mission St., 50 Fremont, Transbay Tower, 501 Second St. and 650 Seventh St.