Autodesk Shifts Headquarters To San Francisco

The software company was already on a mission to consolidate office space as hybrid work takes hold in the face of the still-evolving COVID-19 pandemic. Now, hundreds of employees at the firm’s headquarters will move from San Rafael to San Francisco.

Software company Autodesk will move nearly 600 employees from one part of the San Francisco Bay Area to another as part of the consolidation of its headquarters in the face of the pandemic.

The maker of software for architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries said that it will shift 578 employees from San Rafael to San Francisco’s One Market Street, according to a spokesperson for the firm and a state regulatory filing this week. The headquarters move was first announced in May.

An Autodesk spokeswoman said the move “was as a result of Autodesk reassessing how we’re using our existing office spaces to support the evolving needs of our team and business.”

The spokeswoman confirmed that Autodesk’s San Rafael office will close in October. “Upon closure, the space will be available for sublease, and all 578 impacted employees will be reassigned to our San Francisco office, which is now our new corporate headquarters,” she said.

In a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing this past March, the company said it leased about 1.8 million square feet of office space in 101 locations in the U.S. and internationally.

The San Rafael headquarters consist of approximately 116,000 square feet under leases that expire in December 2024, according to the filing.

The company’s San Francisco office space consist of 284,000 square feet under leases that have expiration dates ranging from December 2022 to June 2026, Autodesk reported.

Autdesk said at the time that the COVID-19 pandemic “has spurred changes in the way we work as we move to a more hybrid workforce resulting in an evaluation of our office space needs. Accordingly, we are reducing the square footage of our facilities portfolio by approximately 20 percent worldwide and incurred impairments to assets associated with our operating leases for real estate in the fiscal year ended January 31, 2022, and expect to incur impairments over the next several quarters.”