Google Buying New York Headquarters

[CommanderFrank]

Google is purchasing their New York headquarters for $1.8 Billion dollars. As owners, it will give them access to almost 3 million square feet of space. Their present space usage is a little over a half million square feet. Either Google really liked the neighborhood, or they are planning to be around for quite a while and even planning on a little growth.

The property was completed in 1932 as the headquarters of the Port of New York Authority, where it stayed until it finished building the World Trade Center in the 1970s. The agency is now known as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

 

[afropuff]

This is one of the largest carrier hotels in the world. A great majority of transatlantic cables come through 111 8th Ave and Petabytes of information pass through this building every day.

-fro

 

[singe_101]

Well if their income is going to Ireland and other countries, might as well HQ in New York and avoid the state income tax as well.

 

[westrock2000]

I guess this is the building?

Also I have a question about Google (or any search engine). How does it get access to stuff that requires certain permissions to view? Sometimes I have followed images or links to forums where Google showed a preview of the information but when I followed the link I either get a permission denied (picture file) or "you must be logged in to view this topic" (forum). How do the search engines get the data?

 

[MrGuvernment]

This is one of the largest carrier hotels in the world. A great majority of transatlantic cables come through 111 8th Ave and Petabytes of information pass through this building every day.

-fro

Scary thought that google will be right on top of it all.....

 

[DoubleZedRed]

I guess this is the building?

Also I have a question about Google (or any search engine). How does it get access to stuff that requires certain permissions to view? Sometimes I have followed images or links to forums where Google showed a preview of the information but when I followed the link I either get a permission denied (picture file) or "you must be logged in to view this topic" (forum). How do the search engines get the data?

afaik it keeps a reference of the image location and name so you don't need the forum permissions to view it.

 

[caddys83]

Grow too big and it will join the rest of the former mega corps. ie; ATT, RCA, Kodak...

 

[STR]

I guess this is the building?

Yup. 111 8th is the 3rd largest office building in the city (after 55 Water St and the MetLife building), roughly 300,000 sqft larger than the Empire State Building. At over 200,000 sqft per floor, it has the largest individual floors by far.

 

[Bahamut]

Google has the "GoogleBot" UserID/UserAgent string for browser identification which typically allows them to access forums, sites, etc and reference the information. You can actually use a tool for browsers like User Agent Switcher (for Firefox and others) that can fake your User Agent string and ID yourself as a GoogleBot and get access, actually.

Most webmasters realize they can get increased traffic and potentially more ad income by allowing the GoogleBot to do its work so Google can search the site.

 

[a123456]

I doubt they're expanding. More likely is that they have way too much cash and it's a decent investment in today's economy of low interest rates. That building in particular has a cap rate of about 5% with the current rents and occupancy rate. 5% return is not bad at all compared to other types of investments. Later on, if they expand, they can, but I don't see them filling out that building any time soon considering how small their NYC branch is.

 

[Cruiza]

I work in the corporate real estate industry, and I don't understand why more entities don't just buy a building when instead they sign a multi-decade lease for over a million dollars of base rent each month. The US government is especially bad about this. But they've never had a history of being efficient, so I guess that doesn't actually surprise me much.

 

[Cruiza]

And by corporate real estate, I mean commercial real estate.