Google to spend $1 billion on new campus in New York
By Sonam Rai
(Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google is investing more than $1 billion on a new campus in New York, becoming the second major technology company after Amazon to pick America's financial capital to expand and create thousands of jobs.
The 1.7 million square-foot campus, called Google Hudson Square, will include leased properties at Hudson Street and Washington Street, the company said in a blog post on Monday. The new campus will be the main location for Google's advertising sales division, the Global Business Organization.
Google hopes to start moving into two Hudson Street buildings by 2020, followed by a Washington Street in 2022 and will have the capacity to more than double its New York headcount, currently more than 7,000, in the next 10 years.
The company's plans to invest outside its home base mirror those of other U.S. tech giants such as Apple Inc (AAPL.O), which said last week it would spend $1 billion to build a new 133-acre campus in Austin, Texas.
Last month, Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) said it would open offices in New York and the Washington, D.C. area, creating more than 25,000 jobs.
Mountain View, California-based Google's move to invest in prime real estate on the lower west side of Manhattan also underscores the growing importance of New York as a hub for innovation and an incubator for technology companies.
With a plethora of white-collar workers and good infrastructure, the city provides a better option to other places that would require more investment.
"We're growing faster outside the Bay Area than within it," said Ruth Porat, chief financial officer of Alphabet and Google.
It is a "fairly sensible" move for Google given the amount of available talent pool, Atlantic Equities analyst James Cordwell said.
It also makes sense for Google as New York has been the centre for their core advertising business, Cordwell added.
U.S. corporations are also under pressure from the Trump administration to create more jobs domestically. Companies that have moved jobs overseas or closed factories have drawn sharp rebukes from President Donald Trump.
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Google was nearing a deal to buy or lease an office building in New York City that could add space for more than 12,000 new workers.
Google's first New York office at 111 Eighth Avenue is one of the city's largest buildings that it bought in 2010 for $1.77 billion.
Earlier this year, the company announced a $2.4 billion purchase of the Manhattan Chelsea Market. It also has leased space on Pier 57 jutting into the Hudson, which will create a four-block campus.
Google shares were down 1.7 percent at $1,032.84 amid a broader market sell-off.
(Reporting by Sonam Rai in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Sweta Singh)
