Google will spend $2.1 billion on a Manhattan office building it's been leasing for several years.
Though tech giants like Google have pushed off return-to-work plans until 2022, "coming together in person to collaborate and build community will remain an important part of our future," Ruth Porat, Alphabet and Google CFO, writes in a blog post.
"It is also an important part of meeting our previously announced racial equity commitments, which include continuing to grow our workforce in diverse communities like New York," where Google currently has 12,000 employees, she says.
So, Google is putting down big bucks on the St. John’s Terminal site at 550 Washington Street, which will formally open in 2023 and "serve as the anchor of our new Hudson Square campus," Porat says. (It's currently under construction, the Wall Street Journal reports.)
Google announced plans for the 1.7 million-square-foot Hudson Square campus in 2018, with lease agreements at 315 and 345 Hudson Street and a letter of intent for 550 Washington Street. When complete, it will "serve as the New York headquarters for our Global Business Organization, which includes our sales and partnership teams," Porat says.
It's the latest billion-dollar purchase for Google on Manhattan's West Side. More than 10 years ago, Google paid approximately $1.9 billion for another office building about a mile north of the Hudson Square campus at 111 Eighth Ave, a building that was formerly owned by the Port Authority. In 2018, it then spent more than $2 billion on Chelsea Market across the street.
In that neighborhood, Google is now financing construction at Pier 57, a space that "will include office space occupied by Google, a public food hall, community space, galleries, the city’s largest public rooftop space and educational and environmental programs run by the Hudson River Park Trust." It's scheduled to be ready next year.