8×8 will move HQ from San Jose to Campbell, expand throughout Bay Area

When searching for its new headquarters, a major San Jose-based tech company decided to go west.

Cloud Communication Company 8×8 has leased nearly 178,000 square feet in Campbell and have started looking for more office space throughout the Bay Area and elsewhere, company officials said Monday.

After a monthslong search for a new headquarters space, the San Jose-based business has agreed to lease 177,850 square feet at 675 Creekside Way in Campbell. The five-story office building, known as Creekside @ 17, will become 8×8’s new global headquarters, sitting steps from the Hamilton Avenue light rail transit station, adjacent to a Courtyard by Marriott hotel and less than half a mile from the Pruneyard shopping center.

Fast-growing 8×8 will move into the nearly brand-new Class A office building — which includes an executive briefing center, a fitness center and a game room — during the first quarter of next year.

“Our new global headquarters allows us to bring Bay Area employees together in a modern office facility,” Vik Verma, chief executive officer at 8×8, said in a statement Monday. “Just like our cloud technology platform provides customers with a great communications and contact center experience, we want to provide our employees with a welcoming, state-of-the art space in which to do their best work.”

Currently, 8×8’s Silicon Valley employees work in two buildings totaling nearly 141,000 square feet at 2125 O’Nel Drive and 2665 N. 1st St in San Jose. Those leases expire in 2019 and 2020, according to public documents.

The company’s move next year will mark a major milestone, not just for 8×8, but for the city of Campbell, the city’s Mayor Rich Waterman said in a statement Monday.

“Campbell is excited to welcome 8×8 as the largest employer in our city upon their occupation of the space,” he said. “We’re confident the Creekside facility will exceed expectations and be the perfect location for 8×8 for years to come.”

Expansion in the Bay and beyond

Meanwhile, the cloud communications company is also making plans to open new offices in San Francisco, the East Bay and in Minneapolis, Minnesota as the company grapples with a 25 percent growth in its employee base over the past year.

Much of that employment growth has been in Silicon Valley, company officials said Monday. But the additional offices will help “accommodate growing teams across all departments,” according to a statement sent to San Jose Spotlight. Currently, 8×8 also has offices in New York City, the United Kingdom, Romania and Australia.

“We have seen exciting momentum over the past 18 months across all areas of the business,” Verma said, adding that the company has made two company acquisitions and added customers and employees across every department in that time.

News of 8×8’s new Campbell lease and planned growth elsewhere comes after the company opted early this year not to move into space it had already leased at a San Jose development called Coleman Highline, though the company’s logo was already on display at the complex.

In February, 8×8 said it would not move into 162,557 square feet it had leased in the still-under-construction complex because of its faster-than-anticipated growth. The company wanted to find a place it could put its employees under one roof , Katie Maller, 8×8’s director of communications, said in a statement to the Silicon Valley Business Journal at the time.

Now it appears the company’s strategy has shifted as it seeks to broaden its U.S. footprint not only in Silicon Valley, but more broadly.

Andy Poppink and Derek Johnson of brokerage JLL represented 8×8 in the recent Campbell lease deal. Todd Shaffer, Mike Saign and Phil Mahoney of Newmark Knight Frank represented the building owners, Los Gatos-based South Bay Construction and Washington, D.C.-based The Carlyle Group in the transaction.

Representatives for South Bay Construction did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the deal Monday morning.

Contact Janice Bitters at [email protected] or follow @JaniceBitters on Twitter.