Cisco will shift units from north San Jose and San Francisco to Santana Row

SAN JOSE — Cisco Systems, one of the tech stalwarts of Silicon Valley, will shift multiple units from San Francisco and north San Jose to the destination Santana Row neighborhood in the South Bay.

The networking titan is taking steps to create more synergy with Splunk, a software analytics company that Cisco bought in May 2024 for $28 billion in an all-cash deal.

Splunk has its headquarters in San Francisco but also maintains a large presence at a Santana Row office building in San Jose.

“We are bringing our Cisco and Splunk teams in the Bay Area closer together to drive greater collaboration, improve cost efficiencies within our real estate portfolio, and create an environment where our people can thrive and drive innovative solutions for our customers and growth for Cisco,” a Cisco spokesperson said.

Cisco has begun to orchestrate multiple shifts in the location of its operations to accommodate an increased Splunk presence in San Jose and changes for Cisco’s sites in the Bay Area’s largest city.

“We are expanding, upgrading, and modernizing our Santana Row office, reducing square footage in our North San Jose complex, and moving San Francisco-based Splunk employees to the current Cisco office there,” the Cisco spokesperson said.

San Jose-based Cisco has decided to exit four buildings in or near the company’s headquarters complex, according to a source familiar with the situation.

The company has decided to close four office sites known as Cisco buildings eight, nine, 10 and 11, the source stated. Those Cisco office site numbers correspond to buildings at 3750 Zanker Road, and 260, 300 and 350 East Tasman Road.

It makes sense for Cisco to increase its presence in San Jose’s Santana Row, in the view of Dave Sandlin, an executive vice president with Colliers, a commercial real estate firm.

“It’s the amenities,” Sandlin said. “Santana Row is an amenities-rich area. A place like Santana Row is a place that can make employees want to go back to the office.”

The Santana Row mixed-use neighborhood at the corner of Stevens Creek Boulevard and South Winchester Boulevard features restaurants, shops, office sites, housing, entertainment hubs, open spaces and hotel facilities.

Cisco is moving its non-engineering staff to the Santana Row site from the four north San Jose sites, which are a cluster of office buildings at the corner of Zanker Road and East Tasman Drive.

It wasn’t clear whether Cisco still has an ongoing lease in those four north San Jose buildings.

The move arrives on the heels of Cisco’s decision, announced in August, that it would trim its worldwide workforce by 7%. IN July 2023, Cisco employed about 84,900 workers worldwide. A 7% cut from a workforce of that size would equate to roughly 5,900 employees.

Since that announcement, Cisco Systems has revealed its decision to eliminate about 900 jobs in the Bay Area. These staffing reductions are slated to affect workers in San Jose, San Francisco and Milpitas.

The cutbacks have prodded Cisco to adjust the amount of office space it requires in sites such as north San Jose and San Francisco.

“As we fully integrate, we will also be expanding to all floors of the building so teams have the right amount of space and flexibility for collaboration,” Cisco stated in a recent message to employees that this news organization has obtained.

The message stated that the moves were scheduled to occur on or around Oct. 12.

“We will maintain a strong engineering presence on our north San Jose campus, and the other buildings will continue to operate as they have,” the Cisco message to its workers stated.

The amenities-rich Santana Row neighborhood also might create incentives for Cisco and Splunk workers to operate in their offices for more time each week.

:”Santana Row is a place that can actually make employees want to work in the office,” Sandlin said. “All the restaurants, retail, all the fun stuff to do at Santana Row make it a pretty cool place to work.”