Colliers has hired broker Clayton Jones as it beefs up its Silicon Valley staff in preparation for an expected regional real estate comeback after several difficult post-pandemic years.
Jones joins the firm as a senior vice president in its San Mateo office on the northern peninsula south of San Francisco, Colliers announced in a press release. In his new role, he will specialize in developing and executing strategies for high-growth companies and active landlords in Silicon Valley, focusing on leasing in the office, research and development, and life science markets, said the firm.
Jones spent the last nine years as a top producer at Newmark, where he signed a total of around 3 million square feet of leases, advising high-growth companies and leading institutional landlords across Silicon Valley from the company’s Palo Alto office, according to LinkedIn.
Executive Managing Director Bryan Courson of Colliers San Mateo and San Jose in the press release called Jones “a true market leader.” He added: “His character, collaborative nature, and deep expertise make him an ideal fit for our team.”
Silicon Valley is enjoying a surging wave of optimism in the wake of the nationwide AI boom and mounting hopes that big tech companies are gradually reverting to office expansions after years of severe real estate cuts following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Startups are seeking space in San Francisco and the suburbs south of the city that are home to tech giants such as Apple, Google and Nvidia. Databricks, which helps companies with data analytics and machine learning, inked a 305,000-square-foot office lease in downtown Sunnyvale, California, just months after the firm agreed to take 150,000 square feet for a larger headquarters at the One Sansome Street tower in downtown San Francisco. In May, cybersecurity firm Zscaler leased around 300,000 square feet for a new headquarters in Santa Clara.
And just this week, Apple was poised to close a major deal to acquire the four-building Mathilda Campus in Sunnyvale from Kilroy Realty for $365 million, bolstering the notion that the tech-concentrated region is returning to pre-pandemic levels of demand.
Bay Area companies have pushed up venture capital spending around the world. VC spending is up 23% this year overall because of outsized billion-dollar rounds going to AI startups, according to a recent report by Crunchbase.
Jones has been involved in various prominent deals, including a lease for a robotic laboratory in South San Francisco for Vivodyne, a company that is developing a technology to replace animal testing in drug discovery. He was also part of the team representing DivCoWest in Andreessen Horowitz’s Menlo Park expansion last year.