Google Climbs NYC Office Space Rankings Ahead of Amazon’s Arrival

(Bloomberg) -- America’s finance capital is getting colonized by Silicon Valley. Google’s planned $1 billion expansion in New York will solidify its dominance as the city’s top big-tech office tenant -- but only until Amazon.com Inc. arrives.

Google now ranks 12th by leased office space in Manhattan, with 1.8 million square feet (167,225 square meters), including two agreements announced on Monday, according to Cushman & Wakefield Plc. The company, a division of Alphabet Inc., also signed a letter of intent to occupy about 1.3 million square feet of space at 550 Washington St., which would move it to sixth on the list, with 3.1 million square feet, according to Bloomberg calculations.

“When the Googles of the world and the Amazons of the world announce decisions like that, other tech companies don’t necessarily pile on, but they notice that, oh, this is a place to be,” said Peter Muoio, chief economist at Ten-X Research, a unit of real estate firm Ten-X Commercial. “This really cements that it’s not really just a secondary kind of market, that it’s really becoming a tech capital.”

Leading the list is coworking company WeWork Cos. and finance industry stalwarts including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Google’s latest investment helps cement its position as Manhattan’s largest big-tech office occupier.

Google said Monday that it reached lease agreements at 315 and 345 Hudson St. that would add about 400,000 square feet. That, along with Washington Street, will create a campus called Google Hudson Square, the company said.

Even with the expansion, the total is still well behind Amazon, which plans to add as much as 8 million square feet of commercial space across the river in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens over 15 years. Apple Inc. also recently outlined its intention to grow in the Big Apple.

In addition to its leased space, Google also owns real estate and has made purchases that rank among the largest ever in Manhattan. In 2010, it bought 111 Eighth Ave., its New York headquarters, for $1.8 billion. Earlier this year, it paid $2.4 billion for the nearby Chelsea Market.

--With assistance from Gerrit De Vynck and Christopher Cannon.

To contact the reporters on this story: Prashant Gopal in Boston at pgopal2@bloomberg.net;Lily Katz in New York at lkatz31@bloomberg.net;Justina Vasquez in New York at jvasquez57@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rob Urban at robprag@bloomberg.net, Daniel Taub

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