ECONOMY 

Google Amazon Facebook and Investment in Real Estate

A Journal of People report

Google is planning to build a town-like campus near its headquarters in Mountain View, California.

The proposal for the new campus – Middlefield Park – near its Silicon Valley headquarters has been submitted this month.

The campus would span a 40-acre site and include public amenities like parks and sports field, retail space, restaurants, and affordable housing.

The plan includes a parks network, retail space, office space, a public pool and sports field, 1,850 residential units. 20% of those units will be affordable housing. The housing commitment follows a $1 billion pledge Google made last year to housing in the Bay Area, which included repurposing some its land holdings to create 15,000 new homes at varying income levels, including homes intended for lower- and middle-income families.

Google’s new campus plans come at a time when the future of offices is uncertain. None of the major tech companies has sent employees back to work in the US amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and Google’s itself is not requiring companies to return to work until July 2021.

But Google isn’t alone in reaffirming its commitment to physical offices. 

Last month, Amazon announced that it plans to expand its physical office space in six “tech hubs” across the US, investing $1.4 billion to build out the offices and adding 3,500 jobs.

Facebook in August signed a deal for a massive new office in the Farley Building in New York City. The office space spans 730,000 square feet and Facebook said at the time it will be used to expand the company’s engineering operations in New York.

Source: City of Mountain View

Google’s plan includes 1.3 million square feet of office space, 30,000 square feet of space for restaurants, retail, or services, and 20,000 square feet for community facilities.

Source: City of Mountain View

Google’s plan will create 12 acres of public space, including a park network of six separate parks. The company says the parks will have space for playgrounds, outdoor fitness, bike paths, a community pool, a sports field, and a dog park.

Source: City of Mountain View

Source: Mountain View Voice

The proposal is still in its very early stages, and many of the buildings that will be constructed have not been designed yet, according to the Mountain View Voice, but none of the buildings will be taller than 12 stories due to a nearby airfield.

Source: Mountain View Voice

Amazon

Amazon plans to expand its “tech hubs” in six cities and fill “3,500 new tech and corporate jobs” across the U.S., the company said on August 18.

The six targeted cities — Dallas, Detroit, Denver, New York, Phoenix, and San Diego — will be part of an investment of more than $1.4 billion, Amazon said in a blog post.

“Teams in these cities will support various businesses across Amazon,” including Alexa, Amazon Advertising, Amazon Fashion and Amazon Fresh, the company said. “We expect to hire for a variety of roles, from cloud infrastructure architects and software engineers to data scientists, product managers, and user-experience designers.”

The targeted cities have “strong and diverse talent pools,” said Beth Galetti, senior vice president, human resources at Amazon. “People from all walks of life come to Amazon to develop their careers — from recent graduates looking for a place to turn their ideas into high-impact products, to veterans accessing new jobs in cloud computing thanks to our upskilling programs,” she said.

The announcement also touted Amazon’s educational programs for employees. These include “paid cloud computing apprenticeships, Amazon Technical Academy, and the innovative Career Choice initiative.”

The ongoing pandemic has caused the online retailer’s sales to skyrocket. Amazon’s second-quarter results saw the company’s revenues and profits almost doubling even while it spent more than $9 billion on capital improvement projects.

Amazon said it had created more than 175,000 new jobs since March, with 125,000 of those becoming full-time positions.

In the cities now targeted for expansion, Amazon will grow its footprint, including the addition of new office space. For example, in Manhattan, Amazon will add 2,000 new jobs, according to the release. And the company has acquired the Lord & Taylor Fifth Avenue building, now slated for a new 630,000-square-foot office space.

While the pandemic’s work-from-home arrangements have opened people’s eyes to the possibilities, the long-term market for commercial real estate is up in the air. Sanjay Rishi at JLL told PYMNTS the commercial real estate market may be poised to embrace a range of hybrid models as it emerges from the shadow of COVID-19.

Facebook

Facebook is officially coming to the Farley Post Office redevelopment, in what is certain to be a major boost for New York’s struggling office market.

The social media giant has signed a lease for 730,000 square feet of space at the property, landlord Vornado Realty Trust announced.

News of Facebook’s interest in the massive complex broke late last year. But as the pandemic raised questions about companies’ need for large offices, there was much hand-wringing over whether or not the deal would go through.

Facebook in May announced its shift to a distributed workforce, a move that could see up to half of the company’s 45,000 employees go remote in the next few years. Many major tech companies have made similar announcements since, putting a big question mark on the tech industry’s appetite for new office space in prime markets.

Vornado CEO Steve Roth on Monday said in a prepared statement that Facebook’s decision “reinforces New York’s position as the nation’s second tech hub.” Robert Cookson, who oversees real estate for the social networking giant, said that the company looked forward to being a part of this iconic New York City landmark’s future for years to come.”

Facebook’s New York city office is currently located at Vornado’s 770 Broadway. The company also signed on last year for more than 1.5 million square feet nearby at Hudson Yards.

What does it mean?

The questions: What do these moves mean? What significance do these moves carry? Is there any relation between profit, consumption and reproduction? What does profit mean? What does consumption mean? Is there any question related to investment? Is there any relation to market? And, is there any need to search these questions and answers to these questions?