As Google Unveils New London HQ, King’s Cross Redevelopment Program Flourishes

July 5, 2013

Tech giant Google has marked the real estate market during the past years with high-profile leases and property acquisitions in cities such as New York, London and Dublin, always putting its creative, alternative stamp on the office space it took over.

By Alex Girda, Associate Editor

London—Tech giant Google has marked the real estate market during the past years with high-profile leases and property acquisitions in cities such as New York, London and Dublin, always putting its creative, alternative stamp on the office space it took over. Its Googleplex development has heightened the profile of Mountain View, and along with Apple, has taken the Silicon Valley area to new market highs. But now, the company is looking to establish a new development trend, after unveiling its new London development project. Acquiring the site for the project and developing it up to this point has reportedly cost Google around 650 million GBP, or around $990 million. Reuters reported that, once completed, the campus would be worth around $1.53 billion.

The new office development will be located on a 2.4 acre site in King’s Cross, an area of the British capital that has been heavily under work and the main target of the local administration’s massive redevelopment and regeneration programs. Defined as a ‘groundscraper,’ the low-rise building will offer Google’s London employees a high-concept office facility. Design plans were unveiled earlier this week showcasing a 1082-foot long campus that would be 11-story tall at its highest point. The most common reference used to express the building’s length was comparing it to the height of the tallest building in Western Europe, The Shard, also located in London, which stands 1017 feet tall.

The 1 million square feet of space that would be developed in the area next to King’s Cross would feature Google’s signature interiors, as well as a climbing wall linking some of the building’s floors. With only planning approvals from local authorities in the way, the construction process is on track to start with the spring of 2014, with a 2016 completion in sight. All current Google employees in London, currently located at the company’s Holborn and Victoria facilities, will relocate to the new campus once it is finished.

King’s Cross is one of the most ambitious redevelopment programs in the European continent and the efforts made to change the area’s designation will produce thousands of jobs, will create a new office and retail environment and effectively turn the area around King’s Cross train station into a new urban hub, all under the newly created London N1C postcode. According to its dedicated website, here’s the King’s Cross redevelopment program by the numbers: