Airbnb Commits To SF By Signing A 10-Year, 169,000 Square Foot Lease

888 Brannan does <i>not</i> look anything like the pristine building pictured in the article. Why would they need to post a clearly 'shopped picture of a building that already exists unless they were hiding something?<p>The actual building's windows are all painted over and that tree in the foreground does not exist. The freeway overpass pictured just across the street is a homeless encampment strewn with shopping carts, human feces, and needles. The city comes by about once a month to hose the sidewalk down with a noxious bleach solution.<p>btw, 888 Brannan is just around the corner from Zynga and Adobe.

For any other europeans, 169,000 sq ft = 15 700 m^2 (or slightly bigger than two football pitches joined up).<p>I don't know enough about retail space to say if this is ambitious or not? On the one hand, a ten year lease is a big commitment, on the other hand I guess AirBnB is thinking 'go big or go home', and in that case it might well get cramped sooner than that.

So every time a startup signs a lease for office space we have to read about it on front-page HN? Who cares? This isn't even interesting. As for the "commitment," a lease is simply an asset and can be sold like anything else.

1,000 employees? For what?

What could they possibly need this much space for, and who is paying for it?<p>Bubblelicious.