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2023: Why Google squeezed billions and changed its mind about building residential areas in San Francisco
In early November 2023, it became known that Google refused to implement a large-scale project to create a campus with residential buildings in the Bay of San Francisco (California). The corresponding construction agreement was broken with the developer LendLease.
In 2019, Google entered into an agreement with LendLease in the amount of $15 billion to build a large number of residential and office facilities, parks, recreation areas, etc. These are Downtown West projects in San Jose, Moffett Park in Sunnyvale, and Middlefield Park and North Bayshore in Mountain View, which are merged under the common name San Francisco Bay Project ("San Francisco Bay Project"). As of the end of June 2023, 12,900 planned housing units had been approved for construction in San Jose and Mountain View, according to Google.
However, due to the changed market situation, Google decided to terminate the agreement with LendLease. It is said that in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the needs of companies in office space have changed dramatically. Moreover, the California commercial real estate market is one of the most affected in the world, since remote work has led not only to a decrease in demand for office space, but also to a decrease in the value of real estate. In addition, Google is forced to save money in the current macroeconomic environment. LendLease said in an official statement that the agreement with Google is no longer mutually beneficial given current market conditions.
 | We are optimizing our real estate investments in the San Francisco Bay Area, and as part of this work, we are considering various options for implementing projects and fulfilling our housing commitments. We appreciate LendLease and the work its team has done, "said Alexa Arena, senior director of development at Google.[1] |  |
2022
The office was built from scratch. 4 thousand employees will work in it
On May 17, 2022, Google announced the opening of its Bay View campus in Mountain View, California. The company says that 4 thousand people will work in the new futuristic green complex, and the buildings will be powered by solar panels.
The office is located on 42 acres of land near the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View and will accommodate 4,000 employees working on advertising products under the leadership of Google Vice President of Advertising Jerry Dischler. It includes two office buildings, an event center for 1,000 people and 240 temporary living quarters for short-term employees in the city.
This is the company's first project built from scratch. Other Google facilities are pre-existing buildings that have been altered by the company, a Google spokesman said.
Executives and press secretaries did not disclose the financial value of the newest campus. However, it is known that it is one of 20 key projects that will receive investments in 2022 worth about $10 billion.
The opening of the new complex comes at a time when the company is cautiously returning most of its employees to offices after two years of remote work during the Covid-19 pandemic.
{{quote 'Since we started with a clean slate, we had to ask ourselves another set of questions, namely, What will work look like in 20 years, 30 years, 50 years, 100 years?, Google's vice president of jobs and real estate, David Radcliffe, said. And I will be honest, we have come to the conclusion: We have no idea. " But we knew it meant we had to be very, very focused on flexibility. This building had to be able to transform over its lifetime to meet the requirements of the business. }}
Part of that planning included accounting for employees coming to the office irregularly - for days or less, Radcliffe said. The campus has informal facilities, an on-site hotel, and various spaces for groups of six to ten to operate. It has modular tables, open, closed and transparent rooms.
The roof of the buildings is covered with 50 thousand specially designed solar panels located at an angle to maximize the collection of rainwater and light penetrating the building, and in combination with geothermal piles, an energy scheme is created under the office complex that can cool the huge structure in hot weather and heat it in the cold season, according to company leaders.
Шаблон:Quote 'This is the largest geothermal pile system in North America,' said Asim Tahir, director of real estate and job, energy and carbon services. A flexible design approach means the design doesn't end with the building opening, executives said. It will change over months and years.[2]
Plans to invest $9.5 billion in offices and data centers
On April 13, 2022, Google announced that it would invest $9.5 billion in offices and data centers in the United States. Investments are designed for 2022 and significantly exceed similar investments in 2021 ($7 billion).
Google intends to fund the creation of office centers throughout the country (USA) and plans to create 12 thousand new jobs as part of the investment. The company will invest in new office centers in cities such as, and Atlas Austin Portland, Oregon. In addition, Google is converting some of its office buildings in the United States, including into and. Silicon Valley New York
In 2022, Google also plans to spend the funds on building data centers in Tennessee, Virginia and Oklahoma. The company will also invest in its existing data centers in Georgia, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas.
| | It may seem counterintuitive to increase our investment in physical offices even at a time when we are using more flexible working practices, "Pichai said. However, we believe that it is more important than ever to invest in our campuses and that this will create better products, improve the quality of life of our employees and strengthen communities. | |
In April 2022, Google required its employees in the San Francisco Bay Area to work in their offices at least three days a week, depending on their role at the company, disappointing many employees who wanted to move outside the high-cost region.
| | Our investment in data centers will continue to drive digital tools and services that help people and businesses thrive, Pichai added in a blog post. | |
Allen Falkon, CEO of Google Cloud partner Cumulus Global in Westboro, Massachusetts, believes data center investments will allow Google to better compete with cloud rivals such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and IBM Cloud Services.
According to Synergy Research Group, Google, along with major competitors Amazon, Microsoft and IBM, has the most extensive global data centers among the world's leading cloud and internet service providers. [3]
2021: Google buys New York office building for $2.1 billion
On September 21, 2021, Google announced the purchase of an office building in New York for $2.1 billion to make it the anchor center of its Hudson Square campus. The announcement came as the city was gripped by the COVID-19 pandemic and most offices are still unpopulated. Read more here.
2020
Google announces construction of sustainable campus in San Jose
In mid-October 2020 Google , it announced construction an environmentally friendly campus in the center, the San Jose plans of which will be finally approved by the city administration in the spring of 2021. Kindergartens, performative art centers and observation platforms are planned to be located on the campus. Part of the multi-use campus in some form will be open to the public.
The campus will occupy an 80-acre site in downtown San Jose and employ 25,000 employees. More than half of the area will be set aside for residential and public spaces, including facilities such as childcare centres, outdoor cinemas and educational viewing platforms.
The San Jose campus is expected to include 30 buildings and about 4,000 housing units, as well as office space for nonprofits, including YearUp and Tech Challenge. The company also plans to locate shopping centers, a hotel and venues for various events and film screenings on the designated territory.
The design of the campus is focused on environmental protection. Google plans to include at least 10 parks and several hiking trails. At the same time, almost all buildings of the site will work from solar or electric energy. The project documents indicate that educational zones of "acquaintance with environmental systems" will also appear on the campus.
Google said 65% of the campus will be open to cyclists and public transport, as well as accessible to pedestrians. All these innovations are designed to reduce the use of cars. The actual construction of the campus will not begin until a few years later, and changes can still be made to the design of the territory until spring 2021.[4]
Google builds California technopolis with cheap apartments and stores
In early September 2020, Alphabet, the owner of Google, presented a project for a new technopolis, which will appear in Mountain View (California). Read more here.
Google ditches dining room, sleep pods and gyms in office
In mid-June 2020, Google announced that it was preparing to return employees to the office on July 6, but the office itself would look different than workers are used to. In particular, the company decided to abandon canteens, sleep capsules and gyms in the office.
The return of employees will take place gradually as the company monitors the implementation of health and safety recommendations. Google intends to return 10% of workers to the office and hopes to increase this share to 30% by September.
During a video call, Google's vice president of global security and resiliency operations, Mark Wrightson, told employees what to expect from returning to the office. Some of these changes will occur at all points of Google, some related to recommendations established in a particular country. Employees were also told that some plans could change before offices open.
Google intends to introduce new entry points to offices every day to avoid crowding in the building's lobby in the morning. Temperature checks at the entrance to the office will be carried out independently, unless local authorities require a different approach. In addition, the company is also considering full-fledged tests for COVID-19 with nasal swabs in some offices.
Inside the premises, social distancing will be observed, including in canteens, conference rooms and office rooms for recreation. In public places, it is required to wear masks, they will be provided by Google. Usually, employees received free meals, but now only lunch boxes will be given out in the canteens, without breakfast or dinner. Staff were also told access to gyms, sleep pods and massage rooms would also be closed.[5]
2019: Google will turn a shopping center in Los Angeles into its office for 54 thousand square meters
On January 8, 2019, Google announced the lease of the Westside Pavilion shopping center in Los Angeles to open its new office there with an area of more than 54 thousand square meters.
The company will begin remaking the operating three-story shopping center for offices in 2019. Google rented this building for 14 years, but this period will be calculated from the time of completion of a large-scale reconstruction of the building and renaming it One Westside. The completion of this construction is scheduled for 2022.
Google has turned to architecture firm Gensler to design office space, which will include nearly 4,200 sq. metres of "extensive terraces and patios" with curved glass walls that transform the space from indoor to outdoor. The roof will also house an area with a small garden.
According to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Google will be responsible for the office part of the project, while property owners - Hudson Pacific Properties and Macerich - will continue to own and manage part of the shopping center connected by a bridge to the office area.
By building a campus in Los Angeles, Google continued to work to expand offices outside Silicon Valley. Earlier, the corporation announced the creation of an office in New York for $1 billion.
Other big tech companies are also expanding their presence outside Silicon Valley and Seattle. So, Amazon chose New York and North Viriginia as a place to build a "double headquarters," and Apple is building a new campus in Austin.[6]
WSJ notes that Google has experience repurposing projects for its own needs. In Los Angeles, the company first expanded in 2003, and then it continued to buy and rent properties in the metropolis. For example, Google is renting a former airplane hangar in the Playa Vista area.
2018
Construction of a new office for $1 billion in New York
On December 17, 2018, Google announced plans to build a new campus in New York, in which it is going to invest $1 billion. The company made the announcement days after Apple announced a similar project.
Google's new office will include three buildings: two of them have already been rented by December 2018, and a third has signed an agreement of intent. It is assumed that employees will enter the first two buildings by 2022, and in the third - in 2022. The object with an area of about 158 thousand square meters will be located in the Manhattan area on the banks of the Hudson River - on Hudson Street and Washington Street.
Google notes that along with the construction of the new campus, the company will support the infrastructure of the chosen area in order to create a convenient place "for work, life and entertainment."
According to Google CFO Ruth Porat, the New York office will employ more than 7,000 people who speak 50 languages and develop various Google services, including YouTube, Google Maps and Google Search, as well as sales, research, cooperation and technical infrastructure support.
Google's decision to build a campus in New York reflects the city's growing importance as a hub for innovation and incubator for tech companies, Reuters noted. Earlier in 2018, Amazon announced that it would invest $5 billion and create more than 50,000 jobs in two new headquarters in New York and Arlington, Virginia.
In addition to Google and Amazon, Apple is building the new campus, which in December 2018 announced $1 billion in investments in it. Apple's office complex will be located in Austin on an area of almost 54 hectares and is designed to work about 15 thousand employees. Initially, the number of personnel will be measured at 5 thousand people.[7]
Google is building a village with 8 thousand houses, where employees will live next to the office
In mid-December 2018, Google announced plans to build a huge residential complex for its employees near the company's office in Mountain View, California, USA. The published documents present an ambitious plan to redevelop the North Bayshore area: the addition of new residential buildings, offices and marketplaces.
The planned construction is one of the company's paths it has chosen to address the area's old housing shortage. Google's development plans include 3.12 million square feet of office space, 400,000 square feet of marketplaces, up to 8,000 new homes as well as 35 acres of public space, according to CNBC.
Google's proposal was developed in accordance with the Exact Plan program. Mountain View City Council in December 2017 approved Google's redevelopment plan to address the disparity between the region's job growth and the amount of housing provided. Mountain View Council approved the construction of up to 9,850 housing units, 70% of which are one-room apartments or studio apartments. Of these, about 20% are considered housing available to anyone.
City planners hope the Google-backed project will also help solve the problem of street traffic jams, as employees will now live directly next to offices and will not need to commute to work from afar every day. According to a Google spokesperson, the company intends to transform the area it trusts so as to provide as much residential space and public spaces as possible "that prioritize people over cars."
Google is already building a new campus in Mountain View called Charleston East, which includes hiking trails, a public park, a plaza and several shopping malls.[8]
Google bought for $1 billion real estate near its headquarters in Silicon Valley
At the end of November 2018, it became known about Google's purchase of a complex of office buildings near its headquarters in Mountain View (California, USA). The transaction value was about $1 billion. Read more here.
Smart doors to Google headquarters can be hacked for one or two
In early September 2018, it became known about the vulnerability of the electronic door control system at Google headquarters. Moreover, the error turned out to be very elementary and incorrigible.
To exploit the vulnerability in smart doors at Google's office in Sunnyvale, California, USA, it was enough to be on the company's network and collect controller messages to close/open doors in order to be able to repeat them yourself. The doors were controlled by devices manufactured by Software House, which declared signal encryption.
However, as Google engineer David Tomaschik told Forbes magazine, encryption was nominal. All messages sent by the Software House hardware contained one fixed encryption key. It was enough to intercept a couple of signals to open/close the doors, after which it was possible to gain control over the system.
Moreover, even the one who sends the request was not checked, as a result of which it was possible to unlock the doors or prevent their employees from opening them without a trace.
According to Tomaszczyk, Google took up the issue immediately after an employee shared the results of their analysis. The company recommended that Software House carry out "full white box security testing of the application," since there is a possibility of other vulnerabilities in the company's products. Google claims that no attempt has been found to exploit the vulnerability for cyber attacks.
Another problem identified by David Tomaszczyk is that firmware in older Software House devices does not support enough memory to cope with changes in software. This means that the company will not be able to apply security patches to already released hardware, and only new systems will be protected from vulnerabilities. Software House confirmed this and assured that customers solved the problem on their own.[9]
Purchase of historical real estate for $2.4 billion
In March 2018, it became known about Google's purchase of the historic Chelsea Market building complex in Manhattan (New York, USA). The property was sold by the investment company Jamestown for $2.4 billion.
Under the terms of the deal, Google received at its disposal an office building with an area of more than 110 thousand square meters with a popular grocery market at the lower level and the right to build 2.8 hectares. The company previously rented several floors in the building, which is located in one of the most booming areas of the city.
Jamestown, by March 2018 the manager of commercial real estate assets totaling $11.8 billion, retained the right to use the Chelsea Market brand outside Manhattan and will continue to manage retail space and a food court. The company intends to develop food markets under the Chelsea Market brand in the USA and Europe.
Google's New York headquarters, which took over an entire block of Manhattan, is just across from Chelsea Market. The internet giant acquired this property in 2010 from the same Jamestown for $1.77 billion. About 7 thousand people work in these offices (data for March 2018).
Google is not yet talking about further plans for Chelsea Market. According to real estate experts, according to city construction rules, the company can attach up to eight floors to the building. Chelsea Market was built on the grounds of the Nabisco factory, which was created back in the 19th century.
Jamestown President Michael Phillips noted that the Google deal confirms New York's status as an innovation center and incubator for start-up IT companies. According to Doug Harmon, a Cushman & Wakefield broker who represented Jamestown in the Google deal, the sale of Chelsea Market indicates that the Manhattan real estate market has not yet lost strength.[10]
2010: Photos of the Zurich office
In recent years, Google has led the rankings of the most comfortable and pleasant companies more often than others. It is believed that in Google offices, as nowhere else, people really love and want to work. At the same time, everyone is officially allowed to spend 20% of their working time on their needs. Take a look at their office in Zurich.
Photos of Google workplaces around the world
2003: Moving to Googleplex campus
By that point, the Google team was expanding beyond offices in Palo Alto. Therefore, in 2003, the company leased the Googleplex campus from technology company Silicon Graphics International. After 3 years, Google was able to fully buy out Googleplex.
Googleplex has become a symbol of Silicon Valley's success. Google has tried to make it more extravagant compared to other office buildings in the region. For example, the first two floors of the main building were connected by a slide.
Google is believed to be the first major tech company to offer its employees free meals. The Google cafeteria has become a Silicon Valley legend, Business Insider notes.
On the grounds of Google headquarters is a statue of a dinosaur covered with numerous small flamingos. The company is rumored that this design encourages employees to prevent professional burnout.
1999: Opening of the first office
After an unsuccessful attempt to sell Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page decided to make a full-fledged business out of their project. To do this, in March 1999, Google moved to its first office at 165 University Avenue in Palo Alto, which was based on large companies such as PayPal and Logitech.
Notes
- ↑ Google ends agreement with lead developer of four California campuses
- ↑ Google opens new ‘Bay View’ campus that was designed for worker flexibility — here’s what it looks like
- ↑ []
- ↑ Here’s a first look at Google’s plans for its massive San Jose campus
- ↑ Lunch boxes, temperature checks, and no more sleep pods: Insiders reveal how Google is planning its return to the office
- ↑ Google plans a new 584,000 square-foot campus in Los Angeles following its $1 billion investment in New York
- ↑ Google Hudson Square: our expanded New York campus
- ↑ Google's massive expansion plan: Its own village with up to 8,000 homes
- ↑ Google's Doors Hacked Wide Open By Own Employee
- ↑ Google closes $2.4 billion Chelsea Market deal to expand New York campus
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