it’s a large piece of real estate along the riverfront and West Village. No doubt it will be enviable in the near future should Google choose to lease out to other companies. That land doesn’t come cheap. Google is thinking long, long term here.
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The building may not be tall but it’s still huge. The lot size is enormous. The floor plates may be the largest in manhattan. The subway is close by. It’s perfect for them.
Whoever is in charge of real estate at Google loves huge NYC buildings that aren’t necessarily very tall. This deal isn’t all that different from when they spent $2 billion for the old Port Authority building at 111 Eighth Avenue. That’s one of the largest buildings in the city even thought it’s only 18 floors tall. So they seem to be consistent with this specific strategy.
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Flood zone #1 but I guess they figure they can afford to rehab the ground floor if it comes to that.
when it comes to that
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Also right next to the garbage truck garage. I doubt the Google employees will want to eat their lunch on the southern terrace.
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Those Sanitation Department buildings along the Hudson River are an odd squandering of a prime real estate development site: there are a few - Canal Street has a couple too.
Here is the view from a residential building two blocks north of this site. This Sanitation Department building at this location was poor planning to say the least.
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Then I guess Google will just buy the garbage truck building if it really bothers the employees. What’s another big building in the area doing being owned by someone other than the company anyway?
wouldnt smell much worse than the rest of the Island TBH
There was quite a hubbub when the garbage garage and the salt shed were first built, which involved some celebrities who lived in the area getting involved with the NIMBY efforts. All things considered it doesn’t look that bad for a garbage garage, but it’s still a huge waste of prime real estate.
And I actually think the salt shed looks really nice:
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Michael Kimmelman gave a rave review of the saltshed when it opened. Given its purpose it’s a terrific building.
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The garbage building was a response to complaints that this kind of thing was only being built in poor neighborhoods. It’s probably there to stay.
West Street between West Village and Hudson Square has so many shitholes looking to the waterfront that should be redeveloped…
Abandoned buildings with graffitis on one of the world’s most popular Hotspots.
I can’t understand how a city with such an amount of money is not able to make a plan and just lei it to developers, if they want, of course…
Think transportation. It’s lousy on the Hudson water front except for the new 34th Street stop on the7 train. If plans are ever made to run that line down to 14th the place would jump to attention. Now the walk to a train can be quite long. West Street to 8th Avenue is not a quick stroll, especially in the winter.
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I think that most of West Street has been beautifully redeveloped.
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RW. A lot of it has. But still a long way to go. I’m actually surprised how much has been done given the transit issues.
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I agree, Chused.
Most of what has been built though are super expensive condos, and I don’t think that people who are that rich take the subway. I suspect that they primarily take car services in those huge, black Escalades that are all over Manhattan.
P.S.: I’d love to see West St reduced to two south-bound lanes only, and the other six or eight lanes be made into tree-lined sidewalks.
My complaint is it always feels unsafe to cross West on foot.
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