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Yeah yeah, you know it. Real estate and rents in Venice are ridiculous. Maybe that's why Silicon Beach heavyweight Snapchat decided to lease an entire 25-unit apartment building, ostensibly to provide its employees a place to live since, well, they can't afford to live anywhere else.
Reporting form the Los Angeles Business Journal tell us Snapchat signed a 3-year master lease on Navy Apartment building, just a minute's walk away from the media company's many Venice offices. The lease was signed in May with the building's owner, Santa Monica based developer Jeff Worthe who purchased the building last year for $9 million.
The Journal spoke with a source familiar with the deal, who said Snapchat plans to use the building to house its interns.
The idea follows that, as Curbed LA points out, in the highly competitive tech industry, the ability to offer its employees housing (in one of the nation's purportedly trendiest neighborhoods) can potentially attract promising talent away from other companies.
"There is a need to help young entrepreneurs and young engineers find affordable housing in tech communities where values tend to go up and up," said Jennifer Post, an attorney at Raines Feldman in Beverly Hills who advises tech companies, to the LABJ.
Aside from this building, Snapchat has been 'snapping up' real estate and leases all over Venice throughout the past couple years. In total, Snapchat controls nearly 200,000 square feet of space on and near the Venice beachfront, immense considering commercial leases in Venice run roughly $5 per square foot.
LAist reached out to Snapchat to see if they were willing to divulge any more information about the rationale behind their decision. When reached by LAist, Snapchat spokesperson Noah Edwardsen said simply "Thanks for reaching out, but nothing to share here."
Okay. Any comment about what happened to the tenants who used to live in those 25 units?
