Charles Schwab will dump some of its office space in Downtown San Francisco as part of a broader move to reduce the firm’s real estate footprint.
Schwab spokesperson Pete Greenley said the company would also reduce its footprint in Boston, Chicago, Jersey City and Henderson, Nevada, by “closing floors or closing offices and then relocating within a similar geography.”
Employees at Schwab’s 211 Main St. location in San Francisco’s Financial District will be eligible for remote work, Greenley said in a statement. He did not comment further on the firm’s immediate plans for the Downtown San Francisco location.
The move, according to Greenley, is in an effort to adequately use resources to “support” the firm’s clients, employees and stakeholders.
Schwab will also close locations in Atlanta, San Antonio, San Diego, St. Louis and Tampa, with employees at those locations also moving to remote work, Greenley said.
“There are no changes to our larger centers and corporate campuses or to our branch footprint,” he said. “There will be no impact to client service.”
The firm’s headquarters was located in San Francisco from 1971 till 2021, when the company moved operations to Westlake, Texas, a suburb of Dallas-Forth Worth.
The announcement comes as a July report released by McKinsey Global Institute researchers attempting to quantify the negative impact of remote work found that San Francisco “still has the poorest outlook” among peer cities across the country in regard to declining commercial real estate values.
The office vacancy rate in San Francisco currently sits at just over 31%, according to real estate firm CBRE.