Meta, the technology company that owns Facebook and Instagram, appears to be planning a dramatic downsizing of its office space in Reston Town Center, the Washington Business Journal says.
A listing on the commercial real estate database CoStar indicates that two floors of the office building at 1818 Library Street will become available in June 2025, the WBJ reported yesterday (Wednesday). That would amount to 51,000 square feet or two-thirds of the roughly 75,000 square feet of office space that Facebook leased in 2019.
According to the WBJ, Reston Town Center property owner BXP made “a vague reference to ‘a traditional tech company’ contracting by 50,000 square feet in Reston” during a second quarter 2024 earnings call with investors on July 31. However, the company’s name wasn’t mentioned.
The update did include an announcement that BXP took effect as the official name of the developer formerly known as Boston Properties on July 1.
Representatives for BXP and Meta didn’t return FFXnow’s requests for comment by press time.
It’s unclear how many employees Meta has in Reston and how often they’ve actually worked out of the office, but the company’s job site currently lists nine positions that are available in Reston, primarily network engineers.
Back in 2021, Facebook said it remained committed to the Reston Town Center office, even though its most of its employees were still working remotely at the time due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Meta mandated that workers return to offices three days a week starting in September 2023.
Meta ended the second quarter of 2024 with 70,799 employees, as of June 30, a 1% drop from last year. Executives said during an earnings call that they anticipate ending 2024 with a “meaningfully higher” head count than 2023 but didn’t offer projections for 2025, saying only that hiring will “focus on priority areas,” such as artificial intelligence research and product development.
Right now, Meta leases three floors, including the 10th-floor penthouse, in 1818 Library Street, which is part of a three-building office complex known as South of Market. Located in the Reston Town Center core, the buildings collectively have 624,492 square feet of space and are 99.6% leased, BXP reported.
Though Meta’s plans are unclear, BXP announced last week that the construction firm Bechtel is keeping and expanding its corporate headquarters at One Reston Overlook, highlighting the 289,000-square-foot addition as an illustration of the town center’s strength in the office market.
The developer has 19 office buildings with 4.9 million square feet of space in Reston, including the two high-rises in the Reston Next expansion whose tenants include Fannie Mae and Volkswagen. Overall, BXP says 93.9% of its Reston office space is occupied and 96.1% has been leased, per the Q2 2024 earnings report.
A development plan submitted to Fairfax County in June suggests BXP hopes to add even more office space in Reston Next, proposing 930,000 square feet in the expansion’s next phase while decreasing residential, retail and hotel uses.
According to BXP’s earnings report, ongoing construction at Reston Next includes 90,000 square feet of offices, 33,000 square feet of retail and the 464-unit Skymark apartment building.
Skymark, which also has office and retail space, is 21% leased, as of July 26, and expected to begin occupancy by the end of September. Reston Next’s office and retail spaces are scheduled to reach occupancy in the first and second quarter of 2025, respectively.
Screenshot via Google Maps
