Google snaps up $235M of Silicon Valley office space
With it largest land purchase so far this year, the tech giant buys six buildings -- totaling 400,000 square feet of office space -- in Mountain View, Calif.
Google has just thrown down $235 million to buy up some more office space in Mountain View, Calif., according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal. This is the company's largest land purchase so far for this year.
The money bought six buildings, or 400,000 square feet of office space, in the Silicon Valley town. Two of the buildings are currently leased to security software company Symantec. The Silicon Valley Business Journal speculates that Google may be looking to make some extra cash as a local landlord as it waits for Symantec's lease to expire.
At the beginning of the year, Google owned roughly 3.5 million square feet of office and building space, while it rented 3.8 million square feet, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal. For comparison, the nearby expansive Stanford University campus occupies 14.8 million square feet of building space.
Google has been snapping up land, building new offices, and expanding its headquarters for the last several years. In 2006, it bought the property where its headquarters sit for $319 million; this acquisition totaled more than 978,000 square feet of land in Mountain View.
In February, Google released it plans for a massive expansion at its Googleplex headquarters, which would incorporate green architecture and design. The first cluster of buildings in this expansion is scheduled to be complete in 2015.
CNET contacted Google for comment. We'll update the story when we get more information.