The Quadrangle

Issue date: 9/27/06 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Photo courtesy of Met.com

Google, the company that has revolutionized the Internet may have big plans for New York City. Google is currently headquartered in a complex known as Googleplex in Mountain View, California. The company also has additional offices all over the world, including one at 1440 Broadway in Manhattan.
The Village Voice is hinting that Google may be expanding in the New York City market by taking office space at 111 Eighth Avenue in Chelsea. 111 Eighth Avenue is not your typical urban skyscraper: The building is owned by Taconic Investment Properties. According to 111eighth.com, the building was built in 1932 and was originally home to the Port Authority Commerce Building. The building has only 15 floors but encompasses an entire city block, which means floors on the building are between 120,000-200,000 square feet.
So why is Google interested in a historic office building in Chelsea as opposed to one of those sleek high-rise office towers or a suburban office park? The building's website claims that "it is one of the most connected buildings in New York as it houses 40 of the leading domestic and international carriers." The Village Voice agrees by giving the building the distinction of sitting "atop one of the main fiber optic arteries in New York City.
Despite being an older building, the list of tenants on the building's website includes big names like BellSouth, Citibank, MCI, Nike Inc., Teleport/AT&T, Time Warner Telecom and Yamaha.
Google has not officially announced a New York expansion but, according to The Village Voice, the company will be taking up 300,000 square feet of office space for a "new office and networking facility."
300,000 square feet is a lot of space, and with companies always looking for cheaper office space, often in the suburbs, this is great news for Manhattan.
According to The Village Voice, the company is "believed to occupy 100,000 square feet" of Manhattan office space at 1440 Broadway and, according to a Google spokesperson who spoke to The Village Voice, the company has more then 500 employees working in the city. If Google opens this new office it will bring more jobs to the city, meaning more people traveling into the city daily, which potentially results in more people frequenting city establishments, and hopefully more people moving back into the city.
The rising cost of leasing office space has driven many employers out of cities across the country, including New York, and into the suburbs, which are filled with freestanding office parks that are cheaper to lease. New York City is staying competitive because it has the ability to draw Google into its urban environment instead of a major west coast city like Los Angeles.
Employees at Googleplex are living the life out in California. According to Google's corporate, "not all Google offices are equally well stocked," but there are a variety of characteristics that are present in all Google offices. With Google potentially having 400,000 square feet of New York office space one can only hope that New York's Google office can be like Googleplex.
Google's corporate information also states that employees at Google can use on-site recreational facilities that include a "workout room with weights and rowing machine, foosball, baby grand piano, pool table, ping pong, and roller hockey twice a week." There is also the Google Café which serves healthy meals and snack rooms that have an assortment of different snack foods.
Google reports that it has 7,942 employees around the world. Now with 500 employees in the city, it can be predicted that Google will call New York City its new home.

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