Facebook’s parent company Meta is leaving the office space it leased in New York’s Hudson Yards complex — the latest sign of belt-tightening at the Silicon Valley tech giant, which recently laid off thousands of workers.
A source familiar with the matter told The Post that Meta will vacate 250,000 square feet of office space at 30 and 55 Hudson Yards, though it will keep the bulk of it — about 1.2 million square feet — at the unfinished 50 Hudson Yards.
Meta has notified Related Cos., the building’s owner, that it plans not to renew its leases at 30 and 55 Hudson Yards at the end of 2024.
Meta told investors last month it expected to pay $2 billion in fees to combine the office space.
The company leased office space at 30 and 55 Hudson Yards—intending it to be a “swing space,” or temporary office it would use before moving to its long-term address at 50 Hudson Yards.
“We remain firmly committed to New York, with the recent opening of the Farley building and the anticipated opening of 50 Hudson Yards next year, which will further solidify our local footprint,” Meta spokeswoman Tracy Clayton told The. Write on Wednesday.
The Post has reached out to Related Cos. for comment.
In 2019, Meta, then still known as Facebook, signed a lease to lease more than 1.5 million square feet of office space in three towers at Hudson Yards.
Most of the space was at 50 Hudson Yards, where Meta subleases part of its footprint, Clayton told The Post, confirming an item first reported by Bloomberg.
The layoffs come after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the company would cut 11,000 jobs — or about 13% of its 87,000 workforce — due to severe economic headwinds.
Meta’s share price has fallen more than 65% in the past year – a six-year low.
In its latest earnings report, Meta said revenue fell for the second straight quarter as the company struggled with declining ad sales due to stiff competition from its growing social media app TikTok.
The Menlo Park, Calif., company earned $4.4 billion, or $1.64 per share, in the three months ended Sept. 30. That’s down 52% from $9.19 billion, or $3.22 per share, in the same period a year ago.
Revenue fell 4% to $27.71 billion from $29.01 billion, slightly higher than analysts’ forecast of $27.4 billion.
Zuckerberg has come under fire from Wall Street after investors took a bearish position on the company’s multibillion-dollar bet on the metaverse project.
Before the recent recession, Meta expanded its New York real estate footprint in anticipation of bringing its employees back to the office en masse.
In August 2020, it leased 720,000 square feet in Vornado’s Farley building.
While Meta is reducing its presence in the Big Apple, its tech rival Google is doubling down on its strategy to increase its footprint in the region in hopes of attracting talent.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc., told Crain’s New York Business that he is “personally bullish on our growth as a company in New York long-term.”
Pichai has put his money where his mouth is. Last year, Google announced the purchase of the St. John’s Terminal building on West Houston Street near the Hudson River for $2.1 billion.
Pichai told Crain’s that Google plans to open offices there by the middle of next year.
Google is also developing two more sites in the Hudson Square section of Manhattan. In total, the three buildings will comprise a campus totaling 1.7 million square feet.
Earlier this year, Google unveiled a new campus at Pier 57 that will include office space in three buildings.
As of last September, Google employed 12,000 people in the city. The company said it aims to increase this number by 2,000 employees in the coming years.