Zoox expands footprint with lease at Illumina campus in Bay Area

Business Journals

22-04-2025

By submitting your information you are agreeing to our Privacy Policy and User Agreement .
The deal is among the largest commercial leases in the Bay Area this year.
Story Highlights Zoox subleases 200,000 square feet near Foster City headquarters.
Amazon-owned Zoox expands autonomous vehicle testing to multiple U.S. cities.
Excess office space creates opportunities for growing tech companies.
Autonomous vehicle startup Zoox is adding at least 200,000 square feet of office space near its Foster City headquarters — a significant expansion as the company continues its growth.
Zoox has agreed to sublease much of Illumina Inc.'s campus at 200–800 Lincoln Centre Dr., less than a mile from its current hub, according to real estate insiders.
GET TO KNOW YOUR CITY
Find Local Events Near You
Connect with a community of local professionals.
Explore All Events
The company, owned by press-cautious Amazon.com Inc., declined to discuss the expansion.
The deal is among the largest commercial leases in the Bay Area this year. It reflects Zoox's expanding operational footprint and growing presence in the autonomous ride-hailing sector, currently led by Alphabet Inc.-backed Waymo.
It also highlights shifts in the local real estate market: Supply of life sciences space exceeds demand. That's giving companies like Zoox an opportunity to quickly scale by occupying move-in-ready office buildings.
Completed in 2017, Illumina's Foster City campus and spaces were developed by BioMed Realty Trust Inc., designed by architects HOK and Perkins & Will, and feature stunning views of the bay and an outdoor amphitheater centered within a plaza.
For more stories like this one, sign up for the Business Journal's free morning and afternoon daily newsletters or download our free app.
Illumina is still on the hook for the office space. At the end of its fiscal year in 2024, the company reported a $12 million charge related to its Foster City campus, compared with $38 million the previous year. As of December 2024, the remaining value of assets at the campus stood at $100 million.
Zoox expands into new markets
Founded over a decade ago at Stanford University, Zoox is best known for its compact autonomous vehicle — often compared to a toaster on wheels — with seating for four.
Since being acquired by Amazon for $1.3 billion in 2020, Zoox has grown steadily under CEO Aicha Evans. The company began testing robotaxis in San Francisco nearly eight years ago, and in late 2024 expanded its testing in the SoMa neighborhood with a new model of vehicle that does not have a driver's seat or steering wheel.
This month, Zoox said it has expanded to Los Angeles. Its test fleet also operates in Foster City, Seattle, Austin, Miami and Las Vegas, where paid service is expected to launch later this year.
Zoox is growing even as global expectations for autonomous vehicles have cooled. In 2024, Goldman Sachs noted that while wide adoption remains slow, artificial intelligence is expected to help drive the industry forward. Zoox underscores that prediction. Co-founder Jesse Levinson said it's been making strides as it tests its AI-driven technology across the U.S.
A McKinsey report also noted robotaxis currently cost more per mile than today's ride-hailing services, but the gap may close quickly, with costs per mile projected to fall by more than 50% by 2030. Faced with these trends, Uber has partnered with Waymo in cities like Austin and Atlanta, signaling a move toward collaboration.
Office space glut creates opportunities
Zoox also reflects how large swaths of vacant office space across the Bay Area — especially in the tech and biotech sectors — are creating opportunities for fast-growing companies. One notable example is Snowflake Inc., which last year subleased 773,000 square feet from Meta Platforms. Meta, offloading space at its Menlo Gateway campus, had been downsizing its real estate holdings.
In the Peninsula, sublease space peaked at 2.9 million square feet — equal to about two Salesforce Towers — in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to real estate brokerage Colliers.
Now, new life sciences projects are under construction, but demand is growing more uncertain. Recently, some developers reported strong interest from technology companies and professional services firms.