Square doubles down on San Francisco, will move to bigger offices

Square, the fast-growing payments company run by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, is relocating to bigger quarters in San Francisco.

Reflecting Dorsey’s commitment to revitalizing the mid-Market section of San Francisco, Square will move to 1455 Market St. by the middle of next year. The company, which has shot up to 400 employees from 150 over the past year, said it plans to employ nearly 1,000 people by year’s end.

“We’re grateful for San Francisco’s commitment to technology, and we’re thrilled the city will remain our home,” Dorsey said in a written statement. He also tweeted the move.

Dorsey is chairman of Twitter, which recently moved to the same stretch of Market Street. And, like Twitter’s splashy new offices there, Square has plans for a roof deck and a chef’s kitchen.

Square is currently one of the hottest companies in the latest technology boom that has brought jobs and wealth to San Francisco. The company, which raised its profile with a major partnership with Starbucks, recently landed $200 million in funding with a reported valuation of nearly $3.3 billion.

Square’s current offices are in the San Francisco Chronicle building at Fifth and Mission streets. It moved there in December 2009 when it had 10 employees.

A proponent of urban living, Dorsey has lodged both of his companies in San Francisco -- and not in the hip South of Market area that has swelled with Internet start-ups, but in grittier neighborhoods littered with shuttered storefronts and boarded-up buildings.

Dorsey’s parents resisted the exodus to the St. Louis suburbs when he was a skinny teenager who papered his room in city maps and experimented with software programs to dispatch taxis, ambulances and couriers. Nowadays, Dorsey told the Los Angeles Times, he’s proud of the jobs he has helped create in San Francisco.

“I’ve always lived in the most troubled part of a city, and I believe confronting the issues of a community on a daily basis helps one to better understand how to fix them,” Dorsey said. “Awareness is the first step toward improvement.”

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