BILL CLARKSON, CCIM Commercial & Investment Specialist

Major Valley employer puts half of Tempe office space up for sublease

Major Valley employer puts half of Tempe office space up for sublease

  • By: BILL CLARKSON, CCIM
  • Posted: February 17, 2023

 
Article Originally Posted by PhoenixBusinessJournal on February 16, 2023
 

Seeing success in its employees working on a hybrid model, Achieve is looking to offload some of its office space in the Valley.

San Mateo, California-based Achieve has been operating at the Rio 2100 campus in Tempe for nearly five years where it fully leased two buildings that total about 300,000 square feet. About three weeks ago, it put roughly half of that space and its four-story "Rio 2" building at 2116 S. Freedom Way on the sublease market, the company said. The entire building totals 150,000 square feet but includes an 18,000-square-foot café that will be a shareable amenity between the Rio 1 at 2114 E. Freedom Way and Rio 2 buildings.

Achieve, previously known as Freedom Financial Network, has more than 2,000 employees in Arizona. No layoffs or job cuts are coming because of the decision to sublease the office space, the company said.

"We're still fully committed to Phoenix and we're going to continue to grow our population," said Erica Bigley, vice president of corporate communications at Achieve.

Bigley said Achieve continues to operate at Rio 2 while the building is on the market for sublease.

Achieve’s new name, announced in late September, is intended to reflect the particularity of its business, with aims to help improve the lives of customers who fall through the cracks of the traditional lending industry. Achieve announced that it had secured $225 million in new debt financing in late October, following its rebranding.

JLL's Chris Corney, Pat Williams and Sydney Setnar are the listing brokers tasked with backfilling the space. In the weeks the team has had the sublease listing, Corney said the team hosted four tours, which include a group in financial services and another in solar.

The main attractions are the building's plug-and-play capabilities, on-site amenities like the café and its flexibility to accommodate different types of users, Corney said. Ideally, he said, the goal is to find one tenant to take the entire 132,000 rentable square feet but the building can accommodate multiple users across the four floors. The current lease at the building runs through 2030.