Snapchat could change Venice’s funky vibe

LOS ANGELES – Snapchat first set up in Los Angeles in a funky old bungalow on Venice Beach, a little startup with only 14 employees. Two years later, the messaging app is rich, famous and expanding fast.

The company is still in Venice, but with 200 employees it has far outgrown its cozy house on the beach. It’s about to nearly double its footprint in Venice with a lease for 40,000 square feet in several buildings, according to real estate experts and property records.

Some residents say the company’s rapid expansion will alter the character of Venice, a longtime enclave for poets, artists, musicians, roller skaters, beach freaks and unclassifiable eccentrics. They gripe about a continuing influx of techies who’ve made Venice a more expensive place to do business.

As “Silicon Beach” expands, it’s bound to transform the laid-back environment that has attracted dozens of startups. Snapchat, the most famous – and highest-valued – startup in Los Angeles, serves as a lightning rod for foes of gentrification.

“The clock can’t be turned back after Venice is built out to support large corporations and not small businesses,” said James Briggs, chief executive of Briabe Mobile Inc., a mobile marketing company and tenant at the Abbot Kinney Boulevard complex where Snapchat is set to move.

The frictions caused by tech industry gentrification are not new. Similar dramas are playing out in San Francisco and other communities disrupted by Silicon Valley companies. Luxurious private buses filled with tech workers have become a vivid metaphor for the widening wealth gap in San Francisco.

Snapchat Chief Executive Evan Spiegel said he chose Southern California to escape corporate and Silicon Valley culture. Walks on the beach helped Spiegel and his business partner Bobby Murphy dream up new features for the app.

If it continues to expand in Venice, though, it will have to grow horizontally. And growth for Snapchat, with a reputed value of $15 billion and millions of users around the world, appears inevitable.

With its low-slung structures, bad traffic and lack of parking, Venice isn’t a natural spot for companies with hundreds of employees.

Snapchat’s latest expansion will displace about three dozen tenants, most on month-to-month leases, who could receive an eviction notice from Snapchat as soon as June 1. Near its headquarters, the company has displaced a youth shelter, an art studio and, by next year, probably a tavern.