By Carolyn R. Saraspi – MarinIJ
Two Sausalito high-tech companies are among four tenants moving into the new Belvedere Place office complex in Strawberry.
MarketTools, which helps other companies conduct research through the Web, is consolidating its three offices into the entire 42,000-square-foot building at 1 Belvedere Place by the end of next month.
We will be much more productive and have room to grow,” said Karen Franks, senior director of marketing at MarketTools, which has 125 employees. It also shows customers we’re not just a dot-com company. We’re around, we’re stable and planning for the future,” she said.
In addition, the interactive television start-up MetaTV will take the 23,000-square-foot second floor of 2 Belvedere Place. Other tenants there will be Charles Schwab & Co. Inc. of San Francisco and the Stupski Family Foundation in Tiburon.
Schwab’s office will be its third in Marin, with other offices in Corte Madera and San Anselmo. Schwab, MetaTV and the family foundation are expected to move in at the end of the year. The $30 million office complex is now under construction on a hill behind the Strawberry Village Shopping Center and is visible from Highway 101.
It will have two office buildings – one with a first-floor parking garage – a parking structure and a trail to picnic benches, said Haden Ongaro of Orion Partners Ltd., which is representing property owner Lehman Brothers in the deal.
Ongaro said he and partner Vic Brown are still looking for tenants for the third floor of 2 Belvedere Place, the only space available at the complex.
“We are now quoting $5.50 a foot,” he said. The average lease rate in southern Marin has been between $4.60 and $5.50 per square foot, he added. “When we first started, we were quoting at $4. It’s been aggressively going up from that.”
MetaTV has been on Ebbtide in Sausalito for 18 months, while MarketTools was in offices at Marinship Way and at Harbor Drive for three years.
“We’re growing very rapidly,” said Ramon Chen, vice president of worldwide marketing at MetaTV, which has 85 employees. “The founders, myself and a whole lot of us live here. We want to hire local people interested in kicking the commute.”
The new space for MarketTools will allow them to add at least 75 employees, Franks said. “We’re expanding to meet the needs of our customers. We’re targeting big Fortune 500 enterprise companies, and that’s something that’s very key in our strategy.”
The relocation of MarketTools and MetaTV from Sausalito opens up office space that has been in high demand for at least a couple of years.
“At this point in the marketplace, there was no choice down there,” said Peter Gettner, a senior vice president and partner with H & L Commercial Real Estate in San Rafael. “It also gives existing tenants room to expand, which they haven’t had a chance to do either.”