• San Francisco Chronicle, Monday, February 19, 2007 12:15 PM

Forget Silicon Valley, San Francisco is once again the place to be for technology companies, as proximity to top workers and competitive lease prices have brought tech companies back to the big city. For startups and big companies alike, San Francisco is proving to be a sensible alternative to Silicon Valley. With lease values equal to Silicon Valley and the East Bay, access to a world-class city, proximity to a major international airport, it's a no brainer.

So who's moving in? Microsoft and Yahoo have already bought office space in the past year, and Google looks to be on the verge of joining them, having signed a letter of intent for space near the Embarcadero. Aside from these tech giants, many smaller, venture capital-funded startups are also on a hiring binge and badly in need of office space.

In downtown San Francisco, it's as if the dot-com bubble never burst: In 2006, a quarter of leased office space went to tech companies, up from 14 % in 2004, says a report from real estate firm Grubb & Ellis.

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