Google To Buy NYC’s St. John’s Terminal For $2.1B For Hudson Square Campus

‘Our decision to exercise our option to purchase St. John’s Terminal further builds upon our existing plans to invest more than $250 million this year in our New York campus presence,’ said Ruth Porat, the chief financial officer of Google and parent company Alphabet.

Google plans to spend $2.1 billion to purchase Manhattan’s St. John’s Terminal as the anchor of its new 1.7 million-square-foot Hudson Square campus in New York City, which will be home to its largest office outside its home state of California.

Google currently leases the St. John’s Terminal site, which it expects to open by mid-2023 to serve as the New York headquarters for its global business organization that includes it sales and partnership teams. The deal for the former freight facility will close in the first quarter of next year, according to the Mountain View, Calif.-based technology company.

“Our decision to exercise our option to purchase St. John’s Terminal further builds upon our existing plans to invest more than $250 million this year in our New York campus presence,” Ruth Porat, the chief financial officer of Google and parent company Alphabet, said in a blog post today announcing the plans. “It is also an important part of meeting our previously announced racial equity commitments, which include continuing to grow our workforce in diverse communities like New York.”

Google has acknowledged the importance of being able to meet in person to collaborate, even as it moves toward a more flexible hybrid approach to work.

After committing to doubling its New York workforce by 2028 three years ago, Google in March announced plans to invest more than $7 billion in offices and data centers across the United States and create at least 10,000 new full-time U.S. jobs this year. That included $250 million in New York City this year and increasing its employee numbers there from 11,000 to 14,000 in the next several years. To promote racial equity, Google last year also committed to increasing representation of underrepresented groups at senior levels of the company by 30 percent by 2025. It also set a goal to more than double the number of Black+ Googlers at all other levels of the company by 2025 and invest in the long-term growth of U.S. locations that contribute to a high quality of life for Black+ Googlers, including in New York.

“Google has been fortunate to call New York City home for more than 20 years, during which time we have grown to 12,000 employees,” Porat said. “New York’s vitality, creativity and world-class talent are what keep us rooted here.”

Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai heralded the news in a tweet this morning: “For more than 20 years, New York City has been home to so many Googlers -- excited to continue growing there and support the city’s economic recovery with our purchases of St. John’s Terminal in Manhattan.”

The development will reconnect Manhattan’s Hudson Square neighborhood to the waterfront and will include numerous outdoor spaces, according to Google.

“Construction is also proceeding at Pier 57, which we expect will be completed next year,” Porat said. “This space will provide new opportunities for us to engage with our community neighbors and will include office space occupied by Google, a public food hall, community space, galleries, the city’s largest public rooftop space, and educational and environmental programs run by the Hudson River Park Trust.”