Snapchat to lease part of Santa Monica Airport, including 8 hangars

Snapchat has expanded out of its beloved Venice Beach neighborhood and into an airport.

The Santa Monica City Council approved a $3 million-a-year lease for Snapchat to take over space at the Santa Monica Airport, which includes two buildings and eight airplane hangers, according to the Santa Monica Mirror. Snapchat didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The five-year-lease gives Snapchat room to expand into the two office buildings, totaling 70,473 square feet, although it has to spend at least $1.4 million in improvements on them.

The deal also includes eight airport hangars, totaling 8,900 square feet of space. It's unclear if Snapchat actually intends to use it to store aircraft - its CEO Evan Spiegel is a helicopter pilot after all - or whether it will also be converted to office space for the company as it rapidly expands.

Snapchat has been on a real estate tear recently, snapping up buildings further inland in Venice and now its neighboring Santa Monica Airport. Rather than building a central campus, like you see at Facebook, Google, and Apple, Snapchat's office buildings are sprawling and tucked throughout Venice Beach.

Its first official office was a bright blue beach house, but it quickly outgrew it and expanded into a 6,000 square foot space at 63 Market Street and two more buildings nearby. In January 2015, it leased an additional 25,000 square feet at the Thornton Lofts. Its latest major land grab came in May 2015, when the messaging app signed a 10-year lease for a 47,000 square foot office complex in Venice.