2 Fast-Growing Tech Firms Moving Up on Westside

Two more fast-growing tech companies are expanding from Santa Monica locations into larger Westside facilities, each snapping up about 50,000 square feet of offices still under construction or renovation. The combined value of the leases signed last week by Boston’s Viant Inc. and locally based Xdrive is estimated at about $25 million.

While both new offices are presumably intended to appeal to top talent in a highly competitive technology labor environment, the companies chose buildings of contrasting style to define their corporate cultures.

Privately held Xdrive, which provides remote Internet access to clients’ computer files, has committed to 50,443 square feet for 6 1/2 years on two floors of the luxurious Water Garden II office complex nearing completion in eastern Santa Monica’s new high-end office district, which caters to entertainment and technology firms.

Water Garden commands some of Southern California’s highest office rents, with the latest tenants signing on at about $45 per square foot annually, which would value this lease at nearly $15 million. Xdrive will move late this year from smaller offices on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Publicly traded Viant, which helps commercial clients develop Internet businesses, leased 50,220 square feet of a warehouse at 3562-3582 Eastham Drive in Culver City that is being converted into commercial space.

Viant will move late this year from a traditional office building on Wilshire Boulevard to the more “edgy” open-floor-plan facility. Viant’s eight-year commitment is valued at more than $10 million.

Since founder and CEO Brett O’Brien launched Xdrive just a year ago, the company has grown from five employees to 160. It expects to add another 100 by the end of the year, O’Brien said.

Jim Jacobson and David Wilson of Lee & Associates represented Xdrive in lease negotiations. Scott Chalmers of landlord J.H. Snyder Co., represented Water Garden II.

Viant’s Southern California operation has boomed in less than 18 months from a single employee--local general manager Lance Trebesch--to nearly 85 today. Trebesch said he expects the staff in the Culver City office to top out at no more than about 135. Anything more “changes your corporate culture fundamentally--and for the worse,” he said.

Hence as local business grows, the company expects to open additional offices rather than expand at the Culver City site.

Jim Fish of Travers Realty represented Viant. First Property Realty’s Ian Strano represented the landlord, PAS Trust.