Economic Downturn Tests Sector Resilience

[IMGCAP(1)] Part 1 of 2-part series.

SAN FRANCISCO-Late last year, Slide, the publisher of applications for social networking sites, signed on to lease the top three floors of 301 Brannan St., a 69,000-square-foot class B office building in Downtown San Francisco owned by the US arm of Amsterdam-based Breevast BV.

Although a 36,000-square-foot lease isn’t mind-blowing by any means, what is impressive is that this nearly quadrupled the size of the company’s previous 8,500-square-foot lease at 612 Howard St. This kind of exponential growth bodes well for the strength of the technology market here, and provides a glimmer of hope in what is beginning to look like a bleak 2009 for the Bay Area.