Google, the search engine giant, has reportedly signed a lease to occupy 180,000 square feet of space in an industrial building located at 85 Tenth Ave., Manhattan, New York City.
Vornado Realty Trust, the famous real estate investment trust which owns 50 percent stake in the building along with Related Cos., told The Wall Street Journal that the Google deal marks a major lease in the building.
Google will be expanding in the building in future too, a person familiar with the deal told The Journal. It has agreed to take up space that the federal government is currently occupying there. The government's lease gets over in 2015 and the web giant is poised to lease up the space once their agreement expires.
The new lease gives Google more foothold in the entire three-block expanse. The building is just near its Chelsea office at 111 Eighth Ave., which it purchased in 2010. That office is now called the Google Building.
Google's hunt for office space in New York City was first reported in April. The company said it was looking for about 600,000 square feet of office space to accommodate at least 3,000 more employees. At that time, Google was said to have set its sight on options like the former New York Daily News building at 450 West 33rd St. and the St. John's Terminal Building at 550 Washington St.
Google is not just expanding in the Big Apple, but also in its native California. Last month, the company bought six office buildings for a deal worth $585 million just northwest of its Silicon Valley headquarters from Starwood Capital Group LLC.
The web giant attributed its massive real estate deals to the fact that it would be hiring and making acquisitions aggressively.
"We expect to continue to hire aggressively for the remainder of 2014. Acquisitions will also remain an important component of our strategy," Google said in a filing, according to Bloomberg.
Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters isn't any less on the fun quotient. They have ladders and scooters that help workers commute between and around floors. For Halloween 2014, the company threw an "Alice in Wonderland" theme party and it was perhaps one of the most extravagant events this Halloween.
Take a look at some photos and videos here.
