Waymo has quietly planted its first Phoenix-area office inside a Tempe business park, snapping up tens of thousands of square feet in a nine-story tower along the Rio Salado corridor. The move gives the autonomous-driving heavyweight a permanent back-office home in the Valley to go with its very visible robotaxi fleet on local streets.
According to the Phoenix Business Journal, Waymo has taken space at the Grand II office building in Tempe. A Kidder Mathews summary of recent deals lists the transaction as a January 2026 sublease of about 40,357 square feet previously occupied by DoorDash.
Where the space is
The Grand II sits at 1033 W. Roosevelt Way and is a prominent Class A tower along Tempe’s Rio Salado corridor, according to CoStar. The building has been marketed to large technology and logistics tenants and, taken with neighboring properties in the submarket, contributes several hundred thousand square feet of modern office inventory.
Waymo's Arizona footprint
Waymo, an Alphabet subsidiary, already runs its Waymo One robotaxi service across parts of metro Phoenix and has been scaling up local manufacturing to keep that fleet rolling. CNBC reported that Waymo and Magna plan to double production at a Mesa "Waymo Driver Integration Plant" to more than 2,000 vehicles by the end of 2026, and Waymo's own reporting has highlighted its broader U.S. manufacturing push.
What it means for Tempe's office market
The deal is a modest but meaningful vote of confidence in Tempe’s office scene, where tenants have been chasing modern, move-in ready space since the pandemic. The Kidder Mathews Q1 Phoenix office report shows Tempe posting the strongest positive net absorption in the metro in the first quarter, a data point that helps explain why big-name users keep circling the area.
Local context and scrutiny
The expansion also lands in a city that has already seen some of the growing pains of driverless tech. Local coverage detailed a January collision involving Waymo vehicles at a Tempe intersection, a reminder that rapid rollout comes with ongoing questions about safety and oversight; see this red light chaos crash report for background.
For now, the Tempe office is a compact but visible signal that Waymo is placing more permanent bets in the Valley, layering corporate space on top of its manufacturing and ride-hail operations already on the ground. City leaders, brokers and neighbors will be watching closely to see whether the new digs translate into more hiring, expanded public operations or additional investment.
