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The deal for St. John's Terminal site in New
York City, which Google currently leases, will complete in the
first quarter of next year, Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat
said in a blog post https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/increasing-googles-investment-in-new-york
on Tuesday. The space is expected to open by mid-2023.
Tech giants, with billions of dollars in cash reserves, have
been taking advantage of lower office building prices across
cities in the United States.
Amazon.com Inc's $978 million purchase of the Lord & Taylor
building on Fifth Avenue last year and Facebook Inc's leasing of
the Farley Building across from Madison Square Garden are seen
as prime examples for Manhattan's real estate prospects.
Tech was the top industry for the second straight year in
Manhattan leasing activity, brokerage CBRE Group Inc said in
January this year.
While Big Tech is growing its footprint, others are vacating
office spaces as pandemic-led remote working has prompted
companies to reassess the need for real estate.
Financial firms, including JPMorgan Chase & Co, were looking to
sublet big blocks of office space in Manhattan, according to
media reports https://www.reuters.com/article/us-jpmorgan-realestate-idUSKCN2AU2KS
from earlier this year.
Google's latest investment "builds upon our existing plans to
invest more than $250 million this year in our New York campus
presence," Porat said.
The investment comes at a time when most of its employees are
working remotely and it has extended its voluntary
return-to-office policy through January.
(Reporting by Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini
Ganguli)
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