BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | Adding to its already enormous Chelsea portfolio, Google on Wednesday announced it has acquired another building in the neighborhood, the Milk Building, at 450 W. 14th St., from Jamestown Properties.
According to Crain’s New York Business, the sum for the deal was not disclosed.
As Crain’s accurately summed it up, “The tech giant already owns or rents nearly all the property between W. 15th and W. 16th Sts. from Eighth Ave. to the middle of the Hudson River on Pier 57.”
The Milk Building and Chelsea Market are connected by a sky bridge. Google bought the Chelsea Market building from Jamestown last year for $2.4 billion.
According to Crain’s, Google plans to occupy three of the Milk Building’s eight floors. Google said it “will continue to honor all existing tenant lease agreements as part of this purchase.”
“This purchase will help us meet our short-term growth needs in Chelsea-Meatpacking,” said William Floyd, Google’s director of external affairs, in an official statement. “We are excited by this investment and are committed to continuing to contribute to the vibrancy of this amazing neighborhood.”
Google’s first purchase in Chelsea was in 2010, when it bought the massive former Port Authority building, at 111 Eighth Ave., which boasts 2.9 million square feet and covers the full square block between W. 15th and W. 16th Sts. and Eighth and Ninth Aves.
Google currently has 8,000-plus employees in the city and, within the next decade, plans to double that.
At the end of last year, Google announced a $1 billion plan to create a second office hub, in Hudson Square, including renting space in a new project by Oxford Properties Group to vertically expand the former St. John’s Terminal to 12 stories. The existing building was the southern terminus of the High Line when it was a functioning freight railroad.
