Zynga Headquarters Moving, Expanding In San Francisco

Social game developer Zynga has signed a seven-year lease agreement for a new office in San Francisco, where it will relocate and expand its headquarters starting in Spring 2011. The new location is at the Townsend Center building on 699 Eighth Street, a 650,000 square foot property owned by TMG Partners, and formerly the headquarters of Sega of America. Zynga's office will occupy 270,000 square feet of the building, which the company says will allow for future growth. Zynga's staff has expanded rapidly in the past year, growing from 398 employees in September 2009 to now more than 1,200 workers. Much of that increase comes from the company's recent acquisitions, which include studios like XPD Media, Unoh, and Challenge Games in just the past several months. With the acquisition of Dextrose, now Zynga Germany, representing the company's first expansion in to Europe, Zynga now has a total of 13 studios around the world, including offices in Sunyvale, Los Gatos, Los Angeles, Boston, Baltimore, Bangalore, Beijing, and Tokyo. Zynga's audience of gamers has grown significantly, too. FarmVille, the most popular application on Facebook, has over 62 million monthly active users, and the firm claims 215 million monthly users across its entire catalog. "As a 15-year San Francisco resident, I value the city’s unique ability to attract the combination of top creative and tech talent that enables innovation," said Zynga CEO and founder Mark Pincus. "Our new headquarters will capture our culture of collaboration, creativity and fun. I want to thank [San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom] for being an outstanding partner in making our new headquarters become a reality."