Google to Purchase St. John’s Terminal for $2.1B

St. John’s Terminal. Image courtesy of COOKFOX Architects via Google

Google plans to acquire St. John’s Terminal, a 1.3 million-square-foot Manhattan property currently developed by Oxford Properties Group and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, for $2.1 billion. The internet giant previously committed to leasing the property on Manhattan’s West Side in 2019. St. John’s Terminal topped out last year, with Google planning to move in by 2023. The sale is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022.

Located at 550 Washington St., St. John’s Terminal is part of a historic freight facility that Oxford Properties Group and CPPIB acquired in 2018 for $700 million from Westbrook Partners and Atlas Capital Group. The 3.3-acre development is situated in the Hudson Square submarket of Midtown South, south of Manhattan’s Hudson Yards megadevelopment.

Apart from St. John’s Terminal, Google is set to occupy an additional 400,000 square feet of office space in the immediate area as part of its future Hudson Square campus, the company’s largest footprint outside California. Ultimately, Google plans to grow its New York City workforce to more than 14,000 employees.

The hybrid dilemma

While many large companies, including Google, have announced that their future workplaces are slated to include sizeable work-from-home components and other similar flexible arrangements, there’s no shortage of large tech players doubling down on the importance of physical offices.

“As Google moves toward a more flexible hybrid approach to work, coming together in person to collaborate and build community will remain an important part of our future,” Alphabet and Google CFO Ruth Porat said in a statement published by the company.

And as owners and managers are navigating the new crosswinds of the office sector, assets anchored by major tech companies continue to make the headlines. Mirroring Google’s move, LinkedIn recently acquired its Silicon Valley headquarters for $323 million from RREEF Property Trust. Earlier this year, a Facebook-leased Bay Area campus secured a $750 million refinancing package and Kilroy sold The Exchange on 16th in tech-heavy San Francisco for a record $1 billion.