Google Buying Manhattan Office Building for $1.9 Billion

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/12/03/wsj-google-has-bought-111-8th-avenue/

by 1SockChuck • 16 years ago

118 52 16 years ago

What is the proximity of this building to Wall Street? I wonder if they are looking to get a foot into the high frequency trading business in some way.

Hovertruck• 16 years ago

It's roughly 3 miles away, 15-20 minutes.

omh2• 16 years ago

For high-frequency trading purposes 3 miles is about 16 µs

commiebob• 16 years ago

It's not close to Wall street. This building is where their NYC offices were already located, by buying it, it makes it easy to expand into vacant office space. And, as stated in the article, about 25% of the building is data center space, it is one of the largest carrier hotels in NYC.

Terretta5• 16 years ago

Close is relative.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Wal...

That's closer in "speed of light" to Wall St than the Newark / Jersey City colos, but computer trading tends to be in Jersey so that's where you'd go if wire speed is your goal.

Try 165 Halsey St in Newark. Here's a map of who is already on each floor. Morgan Stanley has the entire 2nd floor:

http://www.165halsey.com/ourbldg_bldgarea.asp

cynicalkane• 16 years ago

High frequency trading is generally done by colocating servers at the exchange data centers, or another data center with a very low latency link to the exchange's. (The link must be necessarily very short due to the finite speed of light.) You don't need to buy a whole building to do this, and in fact, buying a whole building is unlikely to help.

jkent• 16 years ago

I think a lot of the stock exchanges have their data centres in Jersey now, iirc?

stewiecat• 16 years ago

Yup, in Mahwah area, up Route 17 near the NY border. The NYSE built a massive data center there specifically for colocation of high frequency trading operations, even going so far as ensuring each customers switch runs are the same length. It was on 60:Minutes a while ago.

chrisaycock• 16 years ago

The main NJ data centers for exchanges include Secaucus (Equinix NY4), Weehawken (Savvis), Clifton (Telx), and now Mahwah. All of the major stock exchanges and some of the options exchanges are in one of these data centers.

If I've left any out, please feel free to add as a comment.

hugh3• 16 years ago

At first I thought it looked like an incredibly dumpy building for $1.9 billion. Then I read that it's actually the entire city block that they're buying.

Am I correct in thinking that New York City planning regulations would make it damn near impossible to tear down that dumpy-looking building and build a shiny new one?

rdl• 16 years ago

There is absolutely way they would disrupt operations at one of the top five carrier hotels in the world because you think it looks dumpy.

icegreentea• 16 years ago

Regulations aside, you would be mad to tear this thing down. Relocating all the DCs (and I'm guessing exchanges) in there would be ridiculous. And... 'dumpy' isn't exactly the right word for this building. Another article (from the same site! with the same paragraphs!) shows how f'ing huge this building is.

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/09/14/111-8...

Go to the bottom.

kessler• 16 years ago

That dumpy looking building to you is actually pretty nice looking on the outside and inside in person. It's also the third largest building by square footage in Manhattan, the main carrier hotel in the city for providers like Realty Trust, Equinix, Telx and home to a ton of high profile companies like Nike, Deutsch, Armani, Spotify among others.

look_lookatme• 16 years ago

Dumpy compared to what? I think it's a fine example of classic New York Art Deco.

SkyMarshal• 16 years ago

Kids these days. Not made of souless cinderblocks and drywall = dumpy to them.

patrickgzill• 16 years ago

They would NEVER tear it down. Its value is in its close proximity to so many other networks. I would guess single digit milleseconds to Wall Street (certain trading firms care), along with interconnections to many mobile operators networks, VOIP providers, etc.

They will want the current tenants to stay, so that Google will have top-shelf speed to all their customers' networks at a low cost.

hga• 16 years ago

They also get to collect the rent from these firms instead of paying rent for their current and future space to the old landlord, which will make the financial part better that "Google pays 1.9 billion for dumpy building!" sounds.

rudd• 16 years ago

I won't agree that it looks dumpy, but it certainly doesn't look modern, or in any way similar to the Googleplex. Of course, that's nearly everything in New York. Many think that's a plus...

ahilss• 16 years ago

Regardless of whether the building looks dumpy, the view of Midtown is magnificent: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/iU0pdqJt5xOtzMhGIbrfbg?...

jimbokun• 16 years ago

Is that guy in a bathrobe?

enjo• 16 years ago

I want to go to there

angstrom• 16 years ago

No, it would be like tearing down the Empire State Building to build a new one. By volume this building is currently the second largest Manhattan building after the ESB. It also sits directly on top of a Fiber hub and excellent subway access directly from within the building to the ACE & L subway lines.

wdewind• 16 years ago

It's actually even bigger than ESB, but I don't think it's the largest in Manhattan

"But at 2.9 million square feet, it has more space than the Empire State Building and plenty of room for Google to grow."

forgotAgain• 16 years ago

Am I correct in thinking that New York City planning regulations would make it damn near impossible to tear down that dumpy-looking building and build a shiny new one?

No, that would be common sense talking.

The politicians would love for them to blow a couple of billion on construction crews in a down economy. They'd do some very personal favors for Serge and Larry to have that happen.

krschultz• 16 years ago

Dumpy? I guess you've never been there. A lot of people prefer working in building where the architecture is not 1997 beige suburban office park.

lindsayrgwatt• 16 years ago

I worked in the building for two and a half years and it may appear "dumpy" on the outside but it's an awesome place to work.

Walking into work via a half a block long corridor with cable strung over your head and the clack of your feet echoing along it is a great way to start the day

tricky• 16 years ago

"The offering is being closely watched as a barometer of the Manhattan real estate market."

Does anyone know the Manhattan real estate market? is 1.9 B a steal?

jgv• 16 years ago

This is a great sign of growth for tech in NYC. It's a beautiful building and I hope it gives Google a chance to expand their operations in the city. Here's the website for the building if anyone is interested: http://www.111eighth.com

adolfoabegg• 16 years ago

On Google Maps http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...

Terretta5• 16 years ago

Not sure why this headline says "Office Building". Calling this an office building is like calling the Internet tubes.

It's a colo hotel, with floors an entire block in size that are nothing but vast datacenter spaces.

Here's the cable conduit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78888924@N00/3808798230/

Here's Google's "office". Each of the colos fills this kind of space with cabinets or racks:

http://www.sawagoodidea.com/wp-content/uploads/2005_11_googl...

If you walk up or down 15th or 16th street and look at the windows, you'll see which floors are datacenter space because their windows are blocked out. For example:

http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&q=111+8th+ave&...

// We've been colo'd at 111 8th for a decade.

brown9-24• 16 years ago

Eh? Google has offices - with people, and cubes, and dining in it - in at least four floors of that building. They have about 2000 employees in this building.

Here are a lot more pictures of that space:

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Search-Engines/Inside-Googles-Manha...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/fashion/31google.html

http://picasaweb.google.com/photos.jobs/NewYorkOfficePhotos (linked from http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/uslocations/new-york/)

There are also a handful of other companies - such as barnesandnoble.com - with office space in this building.

Some of the floors might be datacenter space, but a huge amount of it is also people-office space.

Terretta5• 16 years ago

There are a number of other buildings with office space in Manhattan. Not many have multiple datacenter floors covering a city block. One of these characteristics is more relevant to Google than the other.

// As an aside, it's curious that 60 Hudson St looks so much like one end of 111 8th Ave.

cies• 16 years ago

who thinks this leads in google's extension of its product line with financial product that are "note evil"?

i feel financial products are essentially "information product" to begin with.

brown9-24• 16 years ago

I think this would be a mistaken assumption to make; they already have about 2000 employees in this location and a pretty strong presence. I think this transaction just turns them from leasers into owners.

qeorge• 16 years ago

Beautiful building, had lunch with a friend there. IIRC it also housed DoubleClick before the merger, so "moving in" was a matter of Google taking over their floor(s).

lkrubner• 16 years ago

I just got a tour of the offices last week. For those of you who do not know, this is mostly the DoubleClick crew. A lot of the people working there originally worked for DoubleClick and then became part of Google when Google bought DoubleClick. This is also how Google ended up with a New York office.

To the commenter who said this is a great sign for the New York tech scene, I guess I agree, but this needs to be seen as a rebound from a low point. After all, there was a point back in the 90s when DoubleClick seemed a dominant power, and at that time New York seemed like the natural center of the advertising industry, and it seemed like New York's dominance of advertising would last forever -- all of which later was called in question.

The office has a lot of the amenities that I guess you would associate with a modern high tech company -- there is a game room with pool tables and foos ball and ping pong, there is some nice design elements, there is a little museum of old computers in one of the hallways, people ride down the hallways on scoot rides, there are bunch of little coffee shops where everything is free, and there is a room you can go and get a massage.

For all that, though, I agree with the commenter who said the place is a little dumpy. I'm surprised this place is worth $1.9 billion - I'm always a little surprised at how expensive New York real estate is.

BarkMore• 16 years ago

Minor correction: Google opened an the office in NY three or four years before the DoubleClick acquisition. Google was already in the building at the time of the acquisition.

wan23• 16 years ago

Not only that, but Google was already using 4x the amount of office space in the building that DoubleClick was at the time of the acquisition.

asnyder• 16 years ago

I remember reading that the building sits on top of one of the main fiber optic junctions, clearly making it a bit more valuable. I was able to find an article that references this http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/10/27/google-to-play-daniel-pl....

haldean• 16 years ago

Not quite. They own quite a bit of space in the building, and only about half a floor is ads, not all of which is DoubleClick. There's lots of other projects going on there as well.

(Source: I was an intern there last summer and visit friends there every so often)

nostromo• 16 years ago

Fun fact from the NYTimes article: this building has more square footage than the Empire State Building. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/03/nyregion/03building.html?_...

Google Buying Manhattan Office Building for $1.9 Billion

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