Mobile gaming company Skillz is leaving Downtown San Francisco and to open new headquarters in Las Vegas, according to the Las Vegas Sun.
The publicly traded esports company was headquartered at 1061 Market St. and was founded in March 2012.
The company helps mobile game developers monetize their games by hosting online tournaments.
“Real money gaming and Vegas have this really long tradition—history—in the United States, […] and we just see this huge opportunity to help Vegas move into this next era of real money games,” Skillz CEO Andrew Paradise told the Las Vegas Sun.
Its 36,000-square-foot office in the Southwest Las Vegas Valley will be completed in late 2023, Paradise told the Las Vegas Sun.
Skillz already has an office in Las Vegas staffed with around 100 people, the new headquarters will hold around 200 employees.
In contrast, some local tech companies have begun to call their workers back to San Francisco offices and away from home working.
In retail, Nordstrom announced in May that this summer it would close its store in Westfield San Francisco Centre, which is nearby the former Skillz office. The department store chain is also shutting down the Nordstrom Rack across Fifth Street from the mall, blaming both closures on the “dynamics of the Downtown San Francisco market.” A few blocks away, Whole Foods’ flagship store at Market and Eighth streets announced its closure in April due to staff safety concerns.
The Old Navy flagship store not far from the former Skillz office is also closing down. It is one of many major storefronts to flee Downtown San Francisco in recent months. Nearly half of Union Square’s stores have closed since 2019, though several new stores have started operations in the neighborhood recently.
And the upscale home furnishings store Coco Republic said on May 10 it would leave its three-story showplace at 55 Stockton St., which just opened last fall.
Skillz did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.