Dropbox wants to sublease 40% of the office space at its headquarters

Dropbox is shopping around nearly half of the office space at its San Francisco headquarters, as the company plans to move part of its workforce to new office locations by next year, Cory Weinberg of the San Francisco Business Times reported Wednesday.

The report said Dropbox is looking to sublease about 200,000 square feet, or about 40% of the total 500,000 square feet space at its headquarters located in the China Basin area of San Francisco. It still has "years left on the lease," the report said.

Dropbox plans to move part of its workforce to three new locations on Brannan Street, a nearby area where a bunch of startups have offices set up, the report said, adding there won't be any further expansion beyond the new offices.

The report quoted an anonymous source saying the move was intended to ensure that Dropbox's workforce was centralized in one location.

The potential move comes at a time when there are growing questions about the company's business. Dropbox has been pressed by multiple reports and critics debating the company's valuation, which was last valued at $10 billion.

The report noted that sublease space in San Francisco has now jumped to 2 million square feet, which is often an indication of startups realizing they don't need as much office space as they thought they needed. "Typically, increased subleasing signals that some growth-stage technology companies have taken on too much real estate too quickly," Weinberg wrote.

We've reached out to Dropbox and will update the story if we hear back.