Twitter Signs Lease to Stay in San Francisco

After much wrangling, Twitter announced today it has signed a lease to stay in San Francisco for the long term. The company is to be the recipient of a payroll tax break in exchange for moving to one of the city’s more troubled neighborhoods. It had previously signed a letter of intent to stay in the city provided such allowances were made to save the company an estimated $20 million in payroll taxes over the next six years.

In a blog post, Twitter said it expected to move to its new Mid-Market office in mid-2012. “San Francisco’s unique creativity and inventiveness is a part of Twitter’s DNA, and we feel like we are part of San Francisco,” the company said.

The Market Square building (formerly known as the San Francisco Furniture Mart) is about eight big blocks away from Twitter’s current SOMA office and will need to be extensively renovated before Twitter can move in. The building was bought last month by Shorenstein Properties for $110 million.