Posted Sep 21, 2021, 4:30 PM
|
|
New Yorker for life
|
|
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
Posts: 52,912
|
|
https://commercialobserver.com/2021/...hudson-square/
Google Buying Manhattan’s St. John’s Terminal Building for $2.1B
The deal is not exactly a surprise, and solidifies Google's plans to grow in New York City
BY TOM ACITELLI
SEPTEMBER 21, 2021
Quote:
Tech giant Google is buying the St. John’s Terminal building in Manhattan’s Hudson Square for $2.1 billion, the company announced on Tuesday morning. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022, and will easily be the biggest U.S. office building deal since the pandemic started in March 2020. CBRE represented Google on the deal.
Google already leases the 1.3 million-square-foot terminal building at 550 Washington Street, which is undergoing an extensive renovation and is expected to open in mid-2023. Its purchase of the building from developer Oxford Properties and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (operating as CPP Investments) is likely not that big a surprise in the New York real estate world.
|
Quote:
”Google likes to own where they have their presence,” a real estate executive told Commercial Observer in June.
The company has a massive footprint in West Chelsea, the Meatpacking District and Hudson Square, including at 111 Eighth Avenue, a nearly 3 million-square-foot building it bought 10 years ago for $1.8 billion; the Chelsea Market at 75 Ninth Avenue; which it bought for $2.4 billion in 2018; and the nearby Milk Building at 450 West 15th Street for around $600 million in 2019.
The moves, especially the 111 Eighth buy, signaled Google’s intention to build New York into its East Coast headquarters.
|
Quote:
The St. John’s Terminal deal solidifies those plans. It and Google’s other Hudson Square properties at 315 and 345 Hudson Square will serve as the headquarters of the company’s Global Business Organization, which includes Google’s sales and partnership teams. The company plans to grow its New York employee count to 14,000, about double what it was just three years ago. Nos. 315 and 345 are already fitted out.
“Google has been fortunate to call New York City home for more than 20 years, during which time we have grown to 12,000 employees,” the company’s Tuesday announcement said. “New York’s vitality, creativity and world-class talent are what keep us rooted here.”
|
Quote:
Also likely keeping the company here: a leasing and sales market that increasingly favors, and relies on, technology companies. The likes of Amazon, Facebook and Google have signed some of the biggest deals of the past 24 months. Facebook’s 730,000-square-foot lease at Vornado Realty Trust‘s under-development Farley Post Office project remains the city’s biggest office lease since the pandemic started. Amazon, though it abandoned plans to open its second headquarters in Long Island City, Queens, has taken huge chunks of the five boroughs; this includes the entire former Lord & Taylor building at 424 Fifth Avenue, where it plans to have 2,000 employees work, and numerous warehouse sites for deliveries.
|
__________________
NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
|