Meta Platforms secured a small win for its Austin office albatross.
The owner of Facebook and Instagram signed a second subtenant at Sixth and Guadalupe, taking another small bite out of the largest contiguous sublease block in the city, the Austin Business Journal reported.
PricewaterhouseCoopers has inked a deal for approximately 32,000 square feet in the downtown tower and is expected to move in next summer, vacating its current 24,000-square-foot office at 835 West Sixth Street.
While neither Meta nor PwC confirmed the deal, a spokesperson for Lincoln Property Co., a co-developer of the building, said Meta remains the sole leaseholder for all 589,000 square feet of office space, hinting at the sublease arrangement.
It marks Meta’s second reported sublease deal at Sixth and Guadalupe at 400 West 6th Street. Another 32nd-floor lease was reported last month, though the identity of the tenant hasn’t been reported. Even with these subtenants, Meta is still marketing roughly 526,000 square feet, by far the largest sublease offering in the market.
Cushman & Wakefield is marketing the Sixth and Guadalupe space for Meta.
Meta originally pre-leased all of the building’s office space in December 2021 but announced in late 2022 it would seek subtenants before ever moving in. The decision foreshadowed a wider trend of tech firms offloading large footprints across Austin, helping create a glut of empty office space that continues to hang over the market.
Meta still has around 1,500 employees in the metro despite the pullback, many working out of the 300 West Sixth and Third + Shoal towers. Meanwhile, IBM is subleasing Meta’s full-building lease at the 320,000-square-foot Domain 12 in North Austin.
For PwC, the move reflects an expansion and upgrade. The firm is Austin’s largest accounting employer, with roughly 600 local staff. The relocation into a new-construction tower may also reflect broader tenant trends as companies seek more efficient layouts and upgraded amenities while reducing per-employee square footage.
Office leasing velocity is still sluggish, but even small wins like PwC’s move could signal the slow unwinding of Austin’s sublease backlog.
— Judah Duke
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