Google will purchase the St. John’s Terminal building located in Hudson Square for $2.1 billion from developer Oxford Properties and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
The tech giant is expected to close the deal by the first quarter of 2022, marking the biggest U.S. office building deal since the beginning of the pandemic.
Currently, Google already leases the 1.3 million square foot building on 550 Washington Street, but it is being renovated and will reopen by mid-2023.
“Google is very deliberate about their real estate decisions, and I think they were extremely committed to the building,” said Dean Shapiro, head of U.S. development at Oxford. “They worked very closely with us; they bought into the design; it’s going to be completely on target with what they’re trying to do in terms of the workplace. So it’s not surprising to us that they chose to add this as a permanent fixture in their real estate portfolio.”
Google already has an extensive footprint in Manhattan, including an Eighth Avenue building that spans nearly 3 million square feet. This, along with the St. Johns Terminal deal and several other assets the company has purchased over the past several years, has solidified Google’s plans to use New York as its East Coast headquarters.
