Visa moving HQ to San Francisco

Foster City’s largest employer, Visa USA Inc., has signed a 10-year lease that will move its headquarters to San Francisco, but city officials said they are not worried.

Visa will move its headquarters into the top three floors at 595 Market St. in San Francisco. The move means the company’s administrative offices will be located in San Francisco but other employees will remain in Foster City, said Assistant City Manager Kristi Chappelle.

The move was news to Councilwoman Pam Frisella, who said she must have missed reports of the real-estate deal because of the holiday. City Hall did not miss the news and began contacting Visa when it caught wind of the move last week. Chappelle said she was assured it was a small move.

Frisella said although Visa is the city’s largest employer it has limited corporate contact with the community.

Visa owns three buildings at the intersection of Metro Center Boulevard and Vintage Park Drive. It employs approximately 3,000 people, Chappelle said.

Those employees eat and shop at surrounding businesses. No one from the Foster City Chamber of Commerce was available this week to comment on what any loss of employees could mean for local businesses.

The credit card firm’s executive staff already works out of San Francisco. The rest of the administrative staff is expected to take occupancy of the San Francisco offices in September 2009, according to published reports.

Visa Inc. is the world’s largest payments company, with nearly $4 trillion transacted on our payment products in the four quarters that ended on March 31, according to its Web site.

Representatives from Visa did not return calls for comment.

Dana Yates can be reached by e-mail: dana@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 106.