Google has announced today the completion of their purchase of 111 Eighth Avenue in Chelsea, valuing the property at $1.9 billion.
The property is 2.9-million-square-feet and is the biggest deal in 2010 for a single building purchase in the U.S.
Google currently occupies 500,000 square feet in the building, and shares the space with Nike, Lifetime cable, WebMD and many telecoms.
The search giant is said to have won the contract because of its ability to close before the end of the year. The company has already put down a deposit in excess of $200 million.
111 used to be the headquarters for the Port Authority of NY and NJ.
Says Google of the deal:
Google New York started in a Starbucks on 86th Street with one person in 2000—a scrappy, highly-caffeinated sales “team.” After moving to a larger office in Times Square, in 2006 we relocated to our current home in Chelsea, at 111 Eighth Avenue—a former Port Authority building. In June of 2008, we took additional space in the Chelsea Market building at 75 Ninth Avenue. Now we have more than 2,000 Googlers working on a variety of projects in both sales and engineering—and we’re hiring across the board.
Today, we’re pleased to announce that we’ve closed a deal with the partnership of Taconic Investment Partners, Jamestown Properties and the New York State Common Retirement Fund to purchase 111 Eighth Avenue (also known as 76 Ninth Avenue). As part of the deal, we’ve retained Taconic Management Company to continue the leasing oversight services and management of the building on our behalf, providing the same level of customer service the building’s tenants have come to expect. We believe that this is a great real estate investment in a thriving neighborhood and a fantastic city.
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Result for: lifetime
Intel has launched a dedicated App Store for netbooks this week, 8 months after showing off the beta at the CES event.
Dubbed AppUp, the beta is now open to everyone.
The store is compatible with all Windows 7, Windows XP and Moblin netbooks.
To download the main AppUp Center, you can visit AppUp.com or BestBuy.com.
Asus says their netbooks will come preloaded with an Asus-specific version starting this month.
The AppUp store, just like the Android Market and Apple App Store, will offer paid and free apps for news, weather, multimedia, productivity, social networking and more.
So far, Adobe, Accuweather, Barnes & Noble, Funkitron, Gibson Guitars, iWin, Kaplan, KONAMI, and Lifetime have submitted apps.
Result for: lifetime
TomTom,, the popular GPS maker, has announced that they will begin offer “lifetime map updates,” a feature that gives customers automatic updates to the latest digital maps when they become available instead of needing to download them manually.
Adds Jocelyn Vigreux, president of TomTom: “Roads are continually changing– from new street names to closed bridges - so it’s important for users to always have the most up-to-date maps. With the introduction of Lifetime Map Updates, customers can rest assured that the directions their TomTom device provides will always be the most accurate and efficient available.”
The lifetime map updates will use “Tele Atlas” maps, which are continually updated with millions of miles of road and points of interest.
The company says “in order to download TomTom’s Lifetime Map Updates, TomTom users need to simply connect their device to TomTom HOME, TomTom’s free desktop software, and if map updates are available, they can be downloaded to the device. Registered TomTom users will be notified of new map updates as they become available. Typically, Tele Atlas releases maps on a quarterly basis.”
