Google Takes a Bite Out of the Big Apple

[Brett_Tabke]

Google is down with New York City.

So down, in fact, that the web search titan just dropped $1.9 billion to acquire one of the largest and most historic buildings in all of the Big Apple. At nearly 3 million square feet, 111 Eighth Avenue, the former Port Authority building, sits like a beached, red-brick cruise ship overlooking New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. The building is so big, in fact, that it has elevators large enough to accommodate 18-wheel semi-trucks.

And yes, that’s a helicopter landing pad on the roof.

It’s tough to describe how massive 111 Eighth Avenue is — you really have to stand in front of it. But suffice it to say that it takes about 20 minutes to walk once around the building, which encompasses one of those very long city blocks found on the West Side. The size is all the more striking because in a densely-packed city like New York, which is full of very tall buildings, it’s rare to find one that is so horizontally gigantic.

It’s by far the largest U.S. real estate transaction of the year. [wired.com...]

[creeking]

did they get a parking space in the deal?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Perhaps they can park in the elevators?

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Google doesn't really sell anything so... an army of content writers perhaps?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Or an army of manual editors? ;)

[londrum]

customer service department?

[J_RaD]

customer service department?

wooooo hahahahaha

[frontpage]

The New York Post wrote that the Art Deco building has “numerous back-up generators, lots of electrical power, antennas, fiber optics and high-tech facilities available to tenants.” ...

The massive, 2.9-million-square-foot building already houses Google’s offices, as well as several major data centers.

Level3 and Verizon are also housed in that building.

The Spying is just not going to do it itself.

Did you know that in addition to running a search engine, Google helps guide US legislation?

What a cozy relationship between Google, Level3, and Verizon. Hmmm. If we use Opensecrets we can see the huge donations to the current Obama regime in an effort to pass Net Neutrality by these companies.

Level 3 Response to the Verizon-Google Legislative Framework Proposal

Level 3 Communications, Inc. today issued a statement in response to the Verizon-Google Legislative Framework Proposal. The following statement can be attributed to John M. Ryan, assistant chief legal officer and head of Regulatory Affairs for Level 3 Communications:

“We are encouraged that two companies with diverse business interests in the broadband Internet have been able to come to agreement on an issue as controversial as network neutrality. Like both companies, Level 3 believes that the government has a role to play in assuring an open, dynamic, improving and ubiquitous broadband Internet for U.S. citizens. We share their view that government must preserve innovation, advance policies that encourage accelerated investment in broadband infrastructure, and protect competition within all portions of the Internet market.

[grelmar]

It's a logical acquisition for Google. If you look at the hub and spoke structure of the net, that building sits on a very key spot for high end access to some core fiber. Technically, it's a wise move. As a side bonus, it gives them leverage in their ongoing turf war with traditional backbone carriers.

Also, Google has been leasing a lot of space in the building for several years, so from a purely traditional business perspective, it makes a lot of sense. Instead of leasing space and having the lease money go into someone else's pocket, they now own the building and get to take revenues from leasing out excess space in order to offset operational costs.

What's impressive is that they have the cash on hand to throw at this kind of purchase. It's another example of just how huge and cash rich Google has become.

It also indicates Google's continued move into traditional business asset management - owning large chunks of revenue generating real estate is a great buffer against the vagaries of other more volatile areas of their business. This represents almost a throwback business model of complimentary diversification.

Google helps guide US legislation?

That's somewhat misleading. All large corporations try to help craft legislation to their own advantage. AT&T has made their own proposals as guidance for relevant legislation, and AT&T's proposals would work counter to Google's interests in a lot of ways.

[Brett_Tabke]

The only thing I find important in this story, is that NYC is home of Madison Avenue. Google wants *all* their business. This is a beachhead in enemy territory. #endofstory

[outland88]

customer service department?
wooooo hahahahaha

They probably laugh louder than all of us combined when the phrase is mentioned at Google. In fact they probably have defib's all over the building for when it is mentioned.

[Chipmunk]

Check out the website dedicated to the building:
[111eighth.com ]

-=Chipmunk=-

[willybfriendly]

The only thing I find important in this story, is that NYC is home of Madison Avenue. Google wants *all* their business. This is a beachhead in enemy territory...

Also home of Wall Street, and milliseconds count in today's computerized trading. A datacenter there could be worth far more than one might think at first glance...

[grelmar]

Also home of Wall Street, and milliseconds count in today's computerized trading. A datacenter there could be worth far more than one might think at first glance...

Which is part of my argument above. That building sits directly atop one of the core fiber junctions on the East Coast.

Office space in New York, close to Madison Ave and Wall Street, just for the "Face Time" proximity to business movers and shakers is valuable.

Sitting directly on top of a core network junction for for the East Coast... Priceless.

[Maurice]

@grelmar so you're in the same building as NYIX not sure that helps that much. why would you run a dc in such an expensive building makes more sense to put DC's in place where land and power is cheap and buy dark fibre to a suitable POP.

[J_RaD]

just to be clear they purchased the WHOLE building? because after looking at that site the whole building seems to be well occupied, and goog is just listed along with the other tenants.

[willybfriendly]

Maurice, generally unseen, and widely unknown, any number of large data centers dedicated to automatic, algorythmized electronc trading have sprung up in and around NYC. For these outfits, largely operating on arbitrtation of pennies per share, made up by massive volumes, a couple milliseconds of latency can mean millions of dollars every hour.

Your average DC might better be placed where land and power are cheap. Not so in this case though...

[grelmar]

@maurice - willyb nailed part of it. There are a great many use cases where latency is at least as key an issue as bandwidth. Without getting into TOS violating details, where I work now every millisecond of latency we can knock off is $$ in the bank, and we're not in the high frequency trading business. There are many cases where high accuracy synchronization and low latency are the supreme technical challenge. Within the laws of physics (we can't beat the speed of light), getting our latency from North Am to, say, India, below 100ms is critical, and this is nearly impossible to achieve consistently unless you're sitting directly on top of one of the core fiber exchanges. If all you're thinking about is serving up content, then it just isn't an issue for you. Once you get into dealing with persistent two way data synchronization, you're dealing with whole new levels of engineering challenges, and latency can make or break a project.

Google isn't just about search or advertising anymore. If those were their only concerns, then latency wouldn't matter.

@J_RaD - They've been a tenant there for a number of years. What they've done now is to acquire the building and protect themselves from the vagaries of leasing agreements.

[HeadlessChicken]

i smell a big tax break :D