On the back of earlier announcements that tech giants Apple and Amazon will be expanding their presence outside the West Coast, Google announced that it will spend $1 billion to establish a 1.7 million-square-foot campus in New York City.
The question of whether the Big Apple will contend with California in being the nation’s new tech hub will inevitably draw supporters as well as critics.
Nonetheless, the new campus is set to be built in the West Village. The company is estimating that the site will double the size of its 7,000-employee workforce over the next decade.
JUST IN: Google is investing more than $1b to establish a new NYC campus, Google Hudson Square pic.twitter.com/ip08e8ss3k
— Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) December 17, 2018
Dubbed the Google Hudson Square, the campus will be located at 315 and 345 Hudson Street as well as 550 Washington Street.
The tech giant has hopes to start moving into the two Hudson Street buildings by 2020. In 2022, they hope to move into the building on 550 Washington Street.
The view of the future @Google campus, as seen from the @Wnyc newsroom pic.twitter.com/HdiSHDwYMQ
— Kate Hinds (@katehinds) December 17, 2018
This latest investment by the company follows the $2.4 billion purchase of the Manhattan Chelsea Market in March this year.
Ruth Porat, senior vice president, and chief financial officer at Google and Alphabet, said in a blog post on Monday,
“When we came to New York City almost two decades ago, it was our first office outside of California. It’s now home to more than 7,000 employees, speaking 50 languages, working on a broad range of teams, including search, ads, maps, YouTube, Cloud, technical infrastructure, sales, partnerships and research.”
In addition, the company is investing in other locations in the U.S, as the blog post also cited that the company has established new offices and data centers in Detroit, Boulder, Los Angeles, Tennesse, and Alabama.