Google to Invest $1 Billion in new New York Campus

Google's parent company Alphabet on Monday said it was investing more than $1 billion to set up a new campus in New York City, reports AFP. 

In a blog post, Alphabet and Google CFO Ruth Porat said it would lease large office buildings in Manhattan's West Village neighbourhood which will become the centerpiece of a campus of more than 1.7 million square-feet (160,000 square metres).

The new campus, which should be operational starting in 2020, will be known as Google Hudson Square and "will be the primary location for our New York-based Global Business Organization," Porat wrote.

"New York City continues to be a great source of diverse, world-class talent -- that's what brought Google to the city in 2000 and that's what keeps us here," she said.

Alphabet earlier this year said it was buying the Manhattan Chelsea Market for $2.4 billion, and planned to lease space at Pier 57.

The company currently employs some 7,000 people in New York.

"With these most recent investments in Google Chelsea and Google Hudson Square, we will have the capacity to more than double the number of Googlers in New York over the next 10 years," Porat said.

She said the company's "investment in New York is a huge part of our commitment to grow and invest in US facilities, offices and jobs."

The new site is located close to the Hudson river.

The expansion would make California-based Alphabet one of the city's largest commercial tenants, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The announcement comes after rival Amazon said last month that it was splitting its new headquarters between the Long Island City district in New York and Crystal City, a Virginia community across the Potomac River from the US capital Washington.

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