Google Signs Deal to Buy Manhattan Office Building

Does this mean Microsoft/Oracle/Facebook/Cisco/HP etc....are next????

They'll be nothing left!!

> The contract not only signals a rebounding real estate market

SteveF, does anything NOT signify this to you? If someone farts, thats apparently another signal to you.

It might just signify a smart company, of the type that NY has pretty much flopped in trying to build, buying space possibly because they think the market is cheap. Their vote of confidence is in the fact that the old, dying companies that control much of the $$ google makes - the ad conglomerates - are here and need to be sold to.

swe..the rent. Did you pay the rent? Better pay it. The rental market is tight.

http://theapplepeeled.com/

Does that mean Yahoo and Microsoft are going to buy Empire State Building sized prime places as well? yes Google is smart they know when property values are ready to strongly appreciate. Your inventory is dropping fast(hmmm credit crunch of July 07 taking efffect?)

Just like a guy making $30mm /yr don't give a crap about the $3mm 1bdrm, google's focus is on growing their business and not their re holdings. So if your 'home' represents less than .000000001% of your net worth and .00000002% of your cash flow, you have my blessing to buy the empire state body's and shape it into a giant double headed dildo.

Bldg. Damn it

They bought the building for precisely the same reason that Taconic Partners did: it is one of the few properties available with floors thick enough and ceilings high enough to handle the weight and bulk of computer and HVAC equipment. It was originally a storage facility for the Port Authority, and has the necessary freight elevators & other infrastructure that Google's businesses requires.

The only buildings that would meet their needs are former printing facilities, mostly located on Hudson Street and generally occupied by offices. Taconic Partners retrofitted the building to handle fiber optics. Skyscrapers wouldn't meet their requirements because the floors tend not to be thick enough to handle the weight of computer and cooling equipment.

Speaks more to Google as well as the specific nature of this building and its communications connections, than anything in the real estate market.

Reporting on this building and Google's tenancy almost always misses tha main point.

"111 Eighth Avenue, the property, the third largest building in New York City, has become one of the most important high-tech facilities in the world resting atop one of the main fiber optic arteries in New York City, the Hudson Street Ninth Avenue fiber highway."

It's not about the office space, it's about Google having direct access to one of the world's largest fibre optic hubs.

http://www.111-8th-avenue-new-york.com/

This means very little for RE market. Stevejhx is the closest to the mark.

Not only is the physical infrastructure perfect for high-demand computing, this building is also known as a "carrier hotel" - it has fiber network links to all the major telecom carriers, enormous bandwidth capacity, it is the most wired building in the world, this is the "core" building for all internet connections in NY. Major data centers are located in that building for a wide variety of customers, and now Google can expand at a lower cost.

Otherwise, commercial RE is flat.

Magnificent Spin Doctors. You guys are really great spinners. I mean, you're unbelievable. Should be politicians.

what about the new influx of well paid google peeps to Chelsea?

Spin doctors? Please. That's why they bought the building. It has nothing to do with real estate being expensive or inexpensive. They have a fully leased building that they already occupy part of, that meets the needs of high-end computing facilities. Verizon is across the street, in fact, above HSBC. If you recall, they bought MCI.

The building is also secure, in that it is very easy (if they already haven't done so) to build the typical "building within a building" by making the core structurally independent from the outer part of the building, so in case of a terrorist attack, fire, etc., on street level, the data processing facilities remain untouched. It is also capable of bearing the load of an independent power plant on the roof. It was built to store cargo for the Port of New York and New Jersey Authority, which in fact is what is emblazoned across the front. There are also major television studios across the street in the Chelsea Market, plus close access to hotel facilities for its staff.

If I'm not mistaken, it has some of the world's most powerful freight elevators, because they were built to lift whole container trucks. It is a structure from the bygone days of Manhattan as a major port facility.

Anyone who's been down below 14th Street will know that the area is full of similar buildings, which are now occupied by offices and/or housing and/or both. The buildings along Hudson Street were built there because that was the original shoreline of Manhattan; everything to the west is landfill. Landfill, in general, is not able to bear the weight of a building like that.

It's simply a matter of engineering and physics, and Google having a great business. Nothing to do with NYC real estate.

bro u need to get a life....this is f'n great for Manhattan real estate. When the most recognized company in the world spends a 1.8 billion to acquire an empire state size building man that's awesome.

So the job angle didn't work for ya 2 weeks ago, now it's onto the leasing aspect of the story?
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/23808-wanted-more-than-2000-in-google-hiring-spree

stevef - please stop posting anything other than negative news here. The fact that Taconic and the other real estate investors now have more capital that they will likely put to work is also irrelevant. I only want to hear about the companies that are reducing their office space, eliminating jobs, or moving them out of the city. Only news that fits with the story that residential real estate will drop another 50% please.

Printer
Yes fair enough, but SteveF's silly cheerleader'esque posts come to a point where content hardly matters anymore.

fair enough truth. I just find it completely disingenuous when posters dismiss every positive news item or transaction as a one-off. That's what real estate is - a series of individual transactions, each with their own set of unique circumstances. I'm just an observer of the commercial market, but it appears that transactions are picking up, with pricing holding firm or improving slightly. Of course it is nothing like the pace or pricing of '07, though nor is it as bloody as other periods we have witnessed, or anywhere near as bad as many thought it would be.

Really, that is silly, printer. Let's compare Google's purchase of an already occupied building to Stuyvesant Town Peter Cooper Village.

Hmm.

If it were a grand coup for Manhattan office space I'd shout, YAY! But it's not.

truth, I've added more quality content to the site then you ever will. The excited happy posts are just b/c I love to stick it to the bears once and awhile and I'm a happy guy! :) see...

Please Steve, you post some article and then you raise your poms poms.
When people try to engage you in discussion to debate or argue the facts of the article or the topic you cry bear and keep cheerleading.
Your content is non existent.

I have endless posts that are backed up with data, facts, and comps. And anyone who engages their debate on the facts I am more than willing to address AND RESPOND to the facts. Something you've never done.

You think Im a happy bear? You think I want the state of SH*t we are in benefits me? I'd much rather the economy actually turned and I can sell my 5 times the size commercial properties to buying my measly residential property. Instead of the perpetual limbo our government and our media leave us in with their ruse(s).

why compare the two, steve? they are, as I stated above 'individual transactions with their own set of unique circumstances'. they are data points, yes, but only that. And stuy town is an extremely unique situation - the size, the socio/political history, the mix of market and rent-stabilized, the fact that it is bankruptcy, etc. make it different than just about anything else.

but google buying the building for $1.8b vs $1b or $3b or not buying it at all is telling. And if stuy town goes for $1.5b or $3b or $4b that too will be telling.

steveF: "truth, I've added more quality content to the site ..."

Huhhhhh? Say what? Where? When?

hey truth did u ever win one of these? just once maybe? you alan?

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/17258-stevef-gets-the-stock-market-direction-award-for-2009

Yeah, somewhereelse sure did a great job in calling that turnaround!

hey did you not see this content from several months ago? I hope you did and bought. What about the countless times I told you bears how wrong you were after lehman and you should buy during this buying freeze...many bears did and made a fortune but not u guys.

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/20725-close-to-normal-10-correction-ready-to-buy

"I have endless posts that are backed up with data, facts, and comps"

Really? I must have missed that thread.

SteveF, Keep on truckin coz you got a gehgehgehhgehhgggggoood brain.
Sjhx, what?.... still begrudging my post form the Steveposthere thread? What can I say, keep waiting for that $50 per sq ft apartment.

Ive managed to get both Steves against me at the same time!
There has to be a prize there somewhere.
Idiots from a left side or right side of an argument are still just that ....idiots.

"There has to be a prize there somewhere.
Idiots from a left side or right side of an argument are still just that ....idiots."

truthskr, you do a get a prize. The StreetEasy level-headed poster of the month award. It's much rarer than one might think, sadly. Neither of the steves has ever won.

bjw - now God put you in charge of awards, too?

AMAZING!

Thank you BJW, :)

"steveF: "truth, I've added more quality content to the site ...""
Ahart, you made me think of that brilliant w67 post(regarding "content") the troll kept quoting all over the place for a while. I think what the troll misses with Dubyasixsevs posts is the wit factor outweighs the crass factor.

steve, I don't know - what else am I in charge of? Also, what does God have to do with it?

What crass factor?

talking about dumps is debonair? :)

maybe if you're talking about pre-war dumps

now facebook...

As a few clueful posters have pointed out, this is no "office building" that is going to be full of geeks writing code. Sure, they can devote some of the space for that, but FYI a great deal of the Internet and Telecommunications of the entire Eastern Seaboard go through that building.

And to think that during the .com bust people could have bought that building for pennies, as the tenants (data centers, such as Level3, Qwest, Exodus, Global Crossings, etc.) were going for pennies on the dollar.

Disclosure: I'm in that industry, and have had equipment co-located there in the past.