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Google reveals plans for 1.1M square foot, 4 floor ‘Bay View’ campus near SF Bay
- rdl 14y agoI wish Palantir would do a campus somewhere (which I suspect would be an awesome LOTR-themed campus). That would drop Palo Alto real estate from $5-7 to maybe $3-5.
- brudgers 14y agoOriginal Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/02/exclusive-preview-googleplex http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/02/exclusive-pre...
- mmanfrin 14y agoFor a minute I thought they might be revitalizing one of the poorer neighborhoods of SF; but no, 'Bay View' does not reference Bayview.
- stanleydrew 14y agoAnd yet the spelling and capitalization in the "official" Google statement at the bottom is "Bayview."
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- infinityetc 14y agoI was right there with you.
- cpeterso 14y agoI was confused and disappointed, too. However, Google already has a (small) SF office, just south of Embarcaderro: https://plus.google.com/116282327849562022127 https://plus.google.com/116282327849562022127
- mc32 14y agoI don't think that would have been well received. Locals would have decried that SF gov 'gives in' to big corp at the expense of the local population (i.e. not creating jobs many locals could fill and that land that could be used for affordable housing was being bid up by big corp) and probably would have added that not many from the Bayview would have benefitted directly. That's SF politics. People want the clean baby without the bathwater. Lowes+HomeDepot (HD started but bailed and Lowes took over) went thru some idiotic approval process to build their Bayshore location --about 12 or more years after Goodman Lumber closed its doors.
- soup10 14y agoOfftopic, but is there any sane reason plastic bags are outlawed here. It really annoys me because it seems like a victory of naive idealism over common sense. Plastic bags are really useful.
- mmanfrin 14y agoPlastic bags become pollution very easily. You accidentally drop one when it's windy and boom, it's trash circling through the city.
- mc32 14y agoGood question. They both have advantages and disadvantages. I think the main disadvantage of plastic is that few people re-use plastic bags --mainly because most plastic bags are designed to be disposed from the outset. However, petroleum plastics are very durable (else there would not be such disdain for them fouling the enviro), so they could easily be more useful than paper bags. On the other hand, there are bio-sourced plastics (mainly from corn) which are very eco friendly, so I don't know why they'd be banned as well. I think if SF would make a sensible decision, rather than a political decision, they'd just make people pay the 5 or 10 cents for any store-issued bag. The better option is to use bags made for re-use whether plastic, canvass, or other.
- hythloday 14y agoCan anyone explain why they would have to "work closely with NASA"? Is it a typo of the architect firm, NBBJ?
- mikeyouse 14y agoThis is the distance between Google's HQ and Moffett Airfield / Ames Research (both NASA properties): https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Unknown+road&daddr=Crittenden+Ln&hl=en&sll=37.424366,-122.06244&sspn=0.021471,0.051155&geocode=FXkJOwIdE2O5-A%3BFfYOOwId6Fm5-A&dirflg=w&mra=dme&mrsp=0&sz=15&t=m&z=15 https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Unknown+road&daddr=Cr... It's likely that the land that Google is planning on expanding onto is either owned by NASA or adjacent to their facility.
- eclipxe 14y agoNASA owns a lot of the land around Moffett, near the proposed location
- moe 14y agoThey are probably planning for their NASA merger/acquisition.
- nthitz 14y ago"As this project progresses, we’ll continue to work closely with NASA, the community and the City of Mountain View." I must be confused, but what does any of this have to do with NASA?
- ejdyksen 14y agoMoffett Airfield [1], which is operated by NASA, is right next door. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moffett_Federal_Airfield http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moffett_Federal_Airfield
- GauntletWizard 14y agoNASA's Ames Research Center is just south of Google main campus, and is the owner of the wetlands this is likely to be built on. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moffett_Federal_Airfield http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moffett_Federal_Airfield
- jedc 14y agoI believe the land the buildings will be on is being leased from NASA...
- brudgers 14y ago"what does any of this have to do with NASA?" The singularity does not intend to remain Earthbound?
- paulsowden 14y agoThe land the buildings are being built on are leased from NASA. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2008/08_51AR.html http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2008/08_51AR.... The bayview land is here: http://goo.gl/maps/PY8UD http://goo.gl/maps/PY8UD (Source: http://laserfiche.mountainview.gov/WebLink/DocView.aspx?id=58291&&dbid=0 http://laserfiche.mountainview.gov/WebLink/DocView.aspx?id=5...)
- bbvup 14y agoIt's on NASA land. I hope more company open office in Texas though...
- ChuckMcM 14y agoI wonder if it will have flood doors to contain the rising sea waters :-) This is a pretty cool concept drawing. At one time there was a suggestion for Google to run a hovercraft or hydrofoil type ferry from the GooglePlex to San Francisco. This will make that easier! That said I was expecting something to happen, I mean Apple has a spaceship, these guys needed to pupate out of the dead husk of SGI and spread their wings!
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- nlh 14y agoMy only fear when I read about these campuses (Apple's 'spaceship' in particular) is the old adage about the 'curse of the new HQ'. See: http://www.businessinsider.com/poorly-timed-headquarters-2009-11?op=1 http://www.businessinsider.com/poorly-timed-headquarters-200... I know it's a bit superstitious, but the basic idea is that when a company starts building temples to itself and its employees, that means their focus has shifted and their eye is getting off the ball. I hope it's not the case with any of these companies, and I know there are plenty of counter-examples, but still, I think about this.
- OGinparadise 14y agoInteresting. Apple is doing 'great' but the stock market (1) disagrees so almost by definition it isn't doing good. Investors see clouds in the horizon and don't want to look at the $50 billion they might make in profit this year. Is Apple going to grow by 10 to 20% a year? Google reported huge revenue increases and the stock is on fire but not because of new ventures or customers, they just added even more ads to the pages. That's not sustainable and when that happens it has a lot of falling to do. http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=goog http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=goog . Virtually all their money is still from ads. Edit: 1. I think all this hype on stocks is a pump-and-dump operation, played by the big investment banks. "They" buy lots of shares, start the fire with $1000 price targets from their own analysts and when the price is high enough, they dump it, leaving some retail investor holding the bag. Google went from mid $500s to $800 in a few months
- dyno12345 14y agoI think investors think Apple has done so well it now has nowhere to go but down. Something like 50% of Apple's revenue comes from the iPhone, in a market where you're only as good as your latest product and they only release one product a year.
- OGinparadise 14y agoTrue, even though China and India might save them for a while. But then carrier subsidies might cease here. Maybe that's why they build temples like the OP said, they are on top of the world. The next likely move, however, is down.
- dsl 14y agoI can't understand why the big players like Facebook and Google are not building somewhere like South San Francisco. Most of the employees either live in San Francisco or want to, and the difference in real estate pricing could easily be offset by eliminating half the bus fleet.
- calbear81 14y agoI don't think that statement that most of the employees either live in SF or want to is necessarily true and may only be true if you think of those under 30 or are recent college grads. Many folks want to own a home or raise a family outside of the city since it's very cost prohibitive to own or rent in San Francisco. The argument against South San Francisco is that if you're going to build to be closer to San Francisco, then you should make it easily accessible to SF employees. That means it should be a MUNI ride away so you can get to it from anywhere in the city otherwise you're going to either have to drive or deal with a multi-transfer commute. I would suggest the DogPatch or Mission Bay given the access to CalTrain (as a connector to Mountain View HQ) and the availability of large swaths of warehouses or vacant land.
- c4urself 14y agoI disagree, they're in an ideal location for people from both SF and down to San Jose and Fremont. That gives their employees a whole lot more choice for housing and makes it more attractive. Every time I see a company that's in SF offering jobs I shudder at the travel time from the valley. It's wonderful if you've already got a place in SF but makes anyone think twice about joining a company when they consider the crazy living costs in SF.
- drstewart 14y agoNone of those things are true for me. I shudder when I think about paying crazy bay area prices and then having to live in a typical valley suburb. I might as well move to Ohio and pay 1/4th the rent.
- DannyBee 14y agoWell for starters, it may help to realize that "Most of the employees either live in San Francisco or want to" is absolutely false. :)
- rogerbinns 14y agoLooking at the image I see 5 floors. Is counting done differently, the image not right or the headline wrong?
- pests 14y agoNot sure if it applies in this instance but some customs have it so the ground floor is not counted and the second floor is referred to as the first and so on.
- duaneb 14y agoClassic off-by-one error.
- rogerbinns 14y agoI'm British and that is what we do. But that is the label applied to each floor in the lift (some places omit the 13th floor label) and some have floors below ground. However that doesn't change how many floors a building has. The article is written by an American residing in the US about a building in the US so using American conventions would seem appropriate.
- dyno12345 14y agoThey would still call it a two story building
- dyno12345 14y agoMaybe the first floor is mostly a parking garage
- paulsowden 14y agoThis is a misquote in the NW title; the original Vanity Fair article states "The new campus, which the company is calling Bay View, consists of nine roughly similar structures, most of which will be four stories high, and all of which are shaped like rectangles that have been bent in the middle."
- mixmastamyk 14y agoThe most beautiful office I've ever seen is that of ILM in the Presidio... about where Starfleet Academy is supposed to get built. ;) They have a "cafeteria" overlooking the Golden Gate, Bay, forest, etc.
- cpeterso 14y agoI was about to correct you and state that Starfleet Academy was (will be?) located in Sausalito north of the Golden Gate Bridge... but I was wrong! <:) Starfleet Academy's HQ was in the Presidio, but the Academy's training facility was in Sausalito.
- emelski 14y agoDoes anybody know if the plan is to build atop the Shoreline Preserve in Mountain View? That seems to be the only large parcel of land that is both closer to the bay than Google already is and not currently occupied by other structures. Seems a shame to wipe out a hefty chunk of a nature preserve simply to satisfy a corporation's desire for self-idolatry.
- kdsudac 14y agoAnybody else notice the three tents they have one of the grass covered roofs? Easter egg or nice place to catch a nap?
- zura 14y agoMaybe they'll finally afford private offices then... So that engineers won't work full day with headphones.