A mountain view is the thing for me – I’m not a real sun and surf kind of person. But Googlers who are may have reason to celebrate, as the search giant just opened a new office in San Francisco.
Google Gets Office In San Francisco
Judging by a map created by CNET’s Elinor Mills, the Spear Street office is almost literally a stone’s throw away from the San Francisco Bay. And even if I prefer rougher landscapes, I’ll bet some employees will want to come in early, just to see the sunrise.
So far, though, it looks like members of Google’s public relations team are the only ones with that opportunity. There’s no word on who else may move in, or when they’ll do so.
For that reason, it’s hard to judge the implications of this expansion. After all, Google’s been buying (and/or leasing) office space around the world for quite a while, and it’s often done so for relatively clear reasons. For example: some of Google’s New York property sits atop a huge fiber optic network. Also, the search giant got some impressive tax incentives to build a data center in North Carolina.
We do know that the Spear Street offices are at least the second piece of property Google has taken over after Gap left – SFGate’s Verne Kopytoff notes this more recent connection, and we’ve previously covered a transfer that took place in San Bruno.
Still, in regards to the San Francisco office, Google’s just willing to talk about some generalized advantages. And the travel-related benefits. “SF is significant to Google as we have many users, employees, advertisers and publishers here, and it is an important base for recruiting,” a company spokesperson told CNET. “We are happy to have a presence in the city that will allow us to be more responsive to customer needs and cut down commute times for many of our employees.”
Maybe someone forgot to tell Google, but it usually works the other way, with employees moving to live near their workplaces.
Oh, well. In any case, we’ll be curious to see if this is the beginning of yet another Google-opolis.
