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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowSalesforce.com appears to have scrapped plans to build its own downtown headquarters building and instead is seeking a huge block of space in an office tower to satisfy its aggressive growth plans.
The San Francisco-based cloud-computing software giant, which bought ExactTarget Inc. in 2013 for $2.5 billion, employs about 1,400 people downtown, up from 1,000 in early 2014.
The company’s local headcount is expected to grow past 2,000 in the next few years, said Scott McCorkle, CEO of the local Salesforce Marketing Cloud division.
McCorkle said in October that the company prefers urban locations but declined to be specific about its plans. “We have not made any decisions on the real estate. So we continue to look at all options.”
Real estate sources said the company has backed off talk of building its own tower—probably because of the high cost and extended time line for such a project.
The sources said Salesforce is instead searching for up to 200,000 square feet. The space would be in addition to the 215,000 total square feet it occupies in the Guaranty Building on Monument Circle, the Century Building at Pennsylvania and Maryland streets, and the Gibson Building at Michigan Street and Capitol Avenue.
Real estate sources initially said Salesforce was choosing between Chase and Market towers but is now leaning toward Chase.
—Scott Olson
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