By Veronica Grecu, Associate Editor
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Google Inc. plans to expand its footprint in Michigan by building a new corporate campus roughly 44 miles west from Detroit. By the end of 2016, the Mountain View, Calif.-based internet giant will occupy 140,000 square feet of space in Ann Arbor’s north side, according to the Detroit Free Press.
Google first set foot in Ann Arbor in a small office on Main Street in September 2006, attracted by the town’s growing entrepreneurial sector and talented graduates from the University of Michigan—the same university where Google co-founder Larry Page earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering. The internet giant currently leases 85,000 square feet on four floors at the McKinley Towne Centre, a 137,000-square-foot office building located at 401-407 E. Liberty St. in downtown Ann Arbor and owned by Ann Arbor-based McKinley Inc. Google’s lease at the McKinley Towne Centre—which is home to more than 400 Googlers working for the company’s AdWords advertising program—will expire in October, according to Crain’s Detroit Business who quoted CoStar. The internet company also leased 30,000 square feet at the South State Commons II building in the Briarwood Mall area as a temporary space that will handle Google’s growth until the new campus is completed.
In an effort to consolidate all its Ann Arbor operations and programs into one location, Google will lease a 67,000-square-foot office building located at 2300 Traverwood Dr. at the Traverwood Business Park, near the University of Michigan’s north campus. Completed in 2000, the three-story facility is owned by First martin Corp. and was designed as a build to suite for Mechanical Dynamics. According to Crain’s, Google was represented by CBRE in the transaction.
The tech giant is expected to break ground on an adjacent 73,000-square-foot office space in the coming months, and complete it by the end of 2016 when the first employees are set to move in.
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