Princess Cruises issued a statement Wednesday in response to a news story earlier this week about its plans to sublease nearly 300,000 square feet of office space in Valencia.
The cruise line headquartered in Santa Clarita, which is owned by Miami-based Carnival Corp., is seeking tenants to sublease space in four buildings in the Valencia Town Center campus, three on Town Center Drive and one on Magic Mountain Parkway.
The company declined to answer any questions about whether the decision factored into the company’s future plans in Santa Clarita, where its headquarters have been for nearly 24 years.
“Princess Cruise (sic), L.A.’s hometown cruise line, has a rich history across the Los Angeles region, including our offices situated in Santa Clarita,” according to an email statement from Negin Kamali in Princess’ public relations office.
Princess said the decision stemmed largely from the company’s decision during the pandemic to offer remote work options, and a “significant number” of employees took advantage, according to the email.
“Consequently, we now have surplus office space, which we are actively exploring options for subleasing,” she added.
The SCV Economic Development Corp., which tracks local employment numbers and available space among its business-information resources, reported last year there were more than 1,300 Princess employees in the SCV.
Neither the city of Santa Clarita nor the EDC responded to a request for comment on the announcement.
The space is being offered at $1.99 per square foot, according to the advertisement placed by Savills, the firm representing the listing.
The addition of that much office space to the market — 24200 Magic Mountain Parkway (107,173 square feet), 24300 (31,800 square feet), 24303 (60,031 square feet) and 24305 (90,617) — represents about 10% of the total SCV office space supply, which is approximately 2,848,037 square feet as of the EDC’s latest tally. The vacancy rate was reported as approximately 22.7%.
Princess Cruises announced it was building its headquarters in the SCV in 1997, before completing its move here in March 2001 from Century City. There were 700 employees at the time.
The company announced Jan. 8 that Jim Berra, a Miami resident and veteran of the Carnival line, was named chief marketing officer, “reporting directly to Princess Cruises President John Padgett,” according to the release.
