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As Google employees return to campus life following over two years of remote work, the company has a splashy new office for workers in New York.
Google has officially opened a new campus on a Hudson River pier, and it sits on New York’s largest rooftop.
The 630,000-square-foot campus, which sits on Pier 57, includes three buildings and has capacity for about 450 employees. The space, which includes a two-acre rooftop park, will include a new public food hall, community space and a tech-heavy public classroom that will provide environmental education programs.
At a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday, Alphabet and Google chief financial officer Ruth Porat said the company was ahead of schedule for the opening, citing an anxiousness to recruit more employees in New York.
“It’s a magnet for diverse talent,” Porat said of New York, according to New York Business Journal. “It’s the edginess that makes New York the magic that New York is, and that to us is what’s really exciting, what we continue to build on.”
The company has been relying more on the mixed-used model as it has faced pressure to provide benefits to surrounding residents. Last year, the city of San Jose approved what will be Alphabet’s largest campus — a sprawling mixed-use facility that spans 80 acres in the heart of California’s third-largest city. That campus will include 7.3 million square feet of office space and some dense housing, and nearly half of the site will be dedicated to community spaces and parks developed by several partners.
Google last week said its U.S. investments in offices and data centers will amount to approximately $9.5 billion in the U.S. in 2022, which includes its New York expansions. The company is planning to develop an additional 1.7 million square feet of office space in the Hudson Square neighborhood, a company spokesperson said.
This month, the company began enforcing office returns for most employees after two years of remote work during the pandemic. The company has asked employees to start returning to physical offices at least three days a week for a “hybrid” work.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York Mayor Eric Adams also spoke at the ribbon-cutting event this week.
“As much as we want to talk about the post-pandemic world, the numbers are going up, so be smart,” Hochul said during the ceremony. “We don’t want any shutdowns.”