Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Monday 5 March 2018
Google expansion plans helping to turn NYC into tech hub

By KAREN MATTHEWS
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — As New
York City waits to hear
whether it’s been chosen
as the site for Amazon’s
second headquarters, re-
cent moves by another
tech giant, Google, to ex-
pand its footprint in the city
are helping to legitimize
New York’s claim to be Sili-
con Valley East.
Google is reportedly close
to a reaching a $2.4 billion
deal to add a landmark
Meatpacking District build-
ing to its already substantial
New York campus.
The building, a block-long
former Nabisco factory
named after its ground-
floor upscale food mall,
Chelsea Market, sits across
the street from Google’s
current New York City
headquarters, a massive,
art deco, former shipping
terminal that also occupies In this Dec. 4, 2017, file photo, people walk by the the Google office building on Ninth Avenue in New York.
an entire city block. Associated Press
Google already leases The pending Chelsea Mar- west side. cent since 2010. The report of three-year-old startup
space in Chelsea Market, ket deal was first reported New York has been pitch- found that the average sal- ActionIQ, agreed. “One of
which also contains offices by the real estate publica- ing itself as an alternative ary for tech employees in the best things that hap-
for Major League Base- tion The Real Deal. to Silicon Valley for years. the city was $147,300. pened for New York was
ball and the local cable The Google expansion And while tech many nev- Julie Samuels, executive di- when Google opened up
news channel NY1, among comes as other tech com- er rival financial services rector of TechNYC, a trade their office here,” he said.
other tenants. If the sale panies, including Amazon, and Wall Street as the most association of New York Argyros said people in Sili-
goes through, it would be Facebook and Spotify, are important private-sector tech companies, said the con Valley told him he was
among the priciest real es- also growing in the city. employer and economic presence of large compa- “a little bit crazy” when he
tate transactions for a sin- In addition to considering driver in New York, it has es- nies like Google and Ama- moved to New York in 2013.
gle building in city history. New York among the 20 tablished a legitimate foot- zon has created “a robust But his data-focused mar-
It would also give Google finalists for its new eastern print that goes beyond a ecosystem” where young keting company seeks to
a remarkable Manhattan U.S. headquarters, Ama- few big-name companies. engineers and others move attract big companies as
campus to supplement its zon recently signed a deal A report by state Comp- to New York to work for the clients and it’s helpful to be
still-growing main head- to bring 2,000 employees troller Thomas DiNapoli large companies and then in the New York area with
quarters in Mountain View, to a building, formerly oc- found that New York City leave after a few years to its high concentration of
California. cupied by The Associated had 7,600 tech firms in found startups. Fortune 500 companies.
Representatives for Google Press, on Manhattan’s far 2016, an increase of 23 per- Tasso Argyros, the founder “It’s much easier to be
did not respond to requests close to your customers,”
for comment about the he said. Samuels and Ar-
company’s New York ex- gyros said another advan-
pansion plans. tage to New York is that
Google already occupies tech isn’t the only game in
another former Nabisco town. Samuels said she was
cookie factory just west pleased to learn that she
of Chelsea Market. And, and her husband are the
across the street from that only parents in her 3-year-
factory, it has also an- old son’s preschool class
nounced plans to lease who work in tech.
another 320,000 square “That would never hap-
feet of space at Pier 57, an pen in San Francisco,” she
office and retail complex said. When she lived in the
built on a pier over the Hud- city by the Bay, “everyone I
son River. knew was in tech.”
A New York Post real estate Argyros said there’s “a little
writer this week dubbed bit of groupthink in Silicon
Google’s slice of Manhat- Valley. There’s a lot of peo-
tan “Alphabet City,” a ple who have similar jobs,
reference to the name of they read similar things. But
both Google’s parent com- New York is really too big
pany and a neighborhood In this May 15, 2012, file photo, visitors walk through archways carved out of the brick walls at New to be dominated by one
on Manhattan’s east side. York’s landmark Chelsea Market building in the Meatpacking District. industry.”q
Associated Press