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[NYguy]

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Google Opens New Office in Hudson Square, Disney to Follow ...Somewhat Reluctantly
Google is moving into its new glass tower office building at the historic St. John’s Terminal in downtown’s Hudson Square. The search engine giant will soon be joined by Walt Disney’s new NYC HQ later this year–although reports say some employees in Disney’s ABC television unit are skittish about a move so far downtown.






22 FEB 2024

Hudson Square, a neighborhood that has become a hotspot for media and tech companies, is now home to a new 12-story Google office building that will open its doors to up 3,000 employees on Feb. 26

The search engine giant will soon be joined by the Walt Disney Company, which is expected to move many of its ABC Studios employees downtown as soon as its new 1.2 million sq. ft. NYC HQ is completed later this year. The 22-story building is expected to house film and production studios, including the space where “The View” is filmed. Although Disney signed a 99 year lease valued at $650 million for the build-to-suit glass tower, a recent report say that some employees at ABC Studios are reluctant to make the move.

Google’s offices are located at the historic St. John’s Terminal on Washington St., and can reportedly house up to 3,000 out of the 12,000 NYC workers employed by Alphabet, Google’s parent company. Google bought the site in 2022 for $2.1 billion.

Google will now have 6 million sq. ft. of office space in Manhattan, according to a report in Crain’s New York Business. But according to the NYS Department of Labor, Google has laid off over 1,100 local workers over the past year. This includes 887 last April, followed by another layoff of 225 announced in January.

When the plan to move Disney-owned ABC studios on the UWS to the downtown neighborhood was first announced in 2018, Disney CEO Robert Iger said that “the Hudson Square district is rapidly becoming a dynamic, innovative hub for media, technology and other creative businesses.”

A recent report in Page Six, however, claims that staffers on ABC’s morning show “Good Morning America” are loath to give up their ground floor Times Square lease. One insider gossiped that they are worried that GMA’s new studio in Hudson Square “may be in the basement! The talent and producers are not happy about it [and] it leaves advantage to Today”–the rival NBC morning show that broadcasts from studio 1A on the concourse in Rockefeller Center.

For the short term, GMA appears to have extended its lease to stay in Times Square. The Mouse House already sold off its ABC studios on the UWS to the same developer, Silverstein Partners, that built the World Trade Center, and is finishing Disney’s new NY HQ in Hudson Yards. The new building is going to feature a 338 ft tall tower, a public food court on the ground floor, and several landscaped terraces.