Directory:Akahele/Wikimedia Foundation subletting space?
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The <a title="Internet Review Corporation at MyWikiBiz" href="http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Internet_Review_Corporation" target="_blank">Internet Review Corporation</a> has discovered that the Wikimedia Foundation plans to <a title="WebCite record of LoopNet rental listing" href="http://www.webcitation.org/5jXSqfPxc" target="_blank">open up its office space</a> at 39 Stillman Street in San Francisco for sub-lease.
Our inside source at Grubb & Ellis says they're asking $25 per square foot, for the 3,000-square-foot space. (We presume that's an annual rate, which derives $6,250 per month.)
Why is this interesting?
It seems a bit strange that as recently as January 2009, the Wikimedia Foundation was lamenting how they had <a title="WMF explains space needs" href="http://blog.wikimedia.org/2009/01/21/a-note-on-the-wikipedia-usability-initiative/" target="_blank">"outgrown" their current space</a>, and to solve that problem, they conducted a competitive search for some overflow office space that they could rent. When the bids came in, the prices were all over the place, but they really thought the shiniest apple in the bushel was the offer from Wikia, Inc., which is the for-profit enterprise co-founded by the founder of the Wikimedia Foundation. While Wikia didn't present the lowest rental price (indeed, it was above the average of all bids collected), Wikia was extended the exclusive opportunity to <a title="Erik Moeller explains the deal" href="http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-January/049354.html" target="_blank">lower their price</a> to closer to the average of the other bids. Wikia complied, and that's how tax-advantaged money from the Ruth and Frank Stanton Fund ended up in the pocket of Jimmy Wales' privately-held company. Some have called this a "wired deal".
And this <a title="Brian Mingus on conflict of interest" href="http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-January/049343.html" target="_blank">struck some people</a> (those with brains) as a conflict of interest.
Now, only eight months later, are we to understand that instead of having "outgrown" its office space on Stillman Street, the WMF is swimming in surplus floor space, that they need to hire Grubb & Ellis to sub-let it out to someone else?
(Author's note: The Wikimedia Foundation has clarified that they are not swimming in surplus floor space. In fact, the entire staff plans to move soon to new space that reportedly offers more than three times the flooring of 39 Stillman Street's WMF-apportioned space. The "sub-lease" plans are still in place, but the contract is for the entirety of the soon-to-be-former WMF footprint. I also understand that the rented office space at Wikia, Inc. will be canceled and those code developers brought under the "home" roof of the Foundation. Apologies for making the above suggestion; although, in my defense, my initial e-mail about this to my Internet Review Corporation brethren expressed my first hunch that all of WMF was moving. I should have stuck with my initial gut instinct.)
Since we appear to have scooped this story, maybe the Internet Review Corporation should move its Akahele blog staff to San Francisco, so we can be closer to the action? What do you all think? Comments welcome below!