According to Fortune (which sourced The New York Post), Google is “in the final stages” of purchasing the entire building that it uses for its New York City headquarters, and which comprises an entire Manhattan block.
The price tag? A mere $2 billion, about half of what the property would have sold for pre-recession. The 111 8th Ave. building lies between 8th and 9th avenues and 15th and 16th streets in the Chelsea neighborhood and is 18 stories tall, covering 3 million square feet of office space.
Google currently rents out about 550,000 square feet of the building (built in 1932 but that has a Telx ISP facility – i.e. pretty darn fast Internet), and there are other large companies such as Nike and Armani in the building as well. Could Google be thinking expansion or is it just looking at this as a wise investment?
Maybe they’re just thinking of filming their own version of “Mad Men” for Google TV? “8th Avenue Googlers” perhaps? Could this become “Googleplex East”? Time will tell. Anyway, here’s what the enormous building looks like:
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