Google boom: Kirkland campus to double

[Heath]

http://www.seattletimes.com/html/bus...ansionxml.html


Google?s planned expansion in Kirkland is shown in a rendering, looking west. Two new buildings are expected to open in 2015.

The Seattle area is feeling lucky.

Google announced Tuesday that it?s doubling the size of its campus in Kirkland, creating room to hire 1,000 more employees.

The project comes amid a remarkable surge of investment by tech companies in the Seattle market, including Amazon.com?s enormous (and growing) Seattle campus, Microsoft?s efforts to fill thousands of new positions, and a steady stream of tech giants following Google?s footsteps to establish satellite engineering offices in the area.

Google?s two new buildings are expected to open in 2015 on what?s now a vacant lot below the three-building campus that it moved in to less than four years ago. Design work has just started, but the tentative plan is for a dramatic skybridge over a rail corridor through the site, joining the old and new buildings.

?We think that the opportunity here is really huge,? said Chee Chew, a former Microsoft engineer who joined Google in 2007 and became director of its Kirkland site last year.

Public officials lauded the move in a media event at the campus Tuesday evening.

?It is something to celebrate ? for all Washingtonians to celebrate,? Gov. Jay Inslee said.

Google opened a small office in Kirkland in 2004 and rapidly grew into larger and larger spaces. Many of its recruits came from Microsoft and Amazon.com, but the site also drew employees from other companies and schools around the country and world.

Chew said Google has had double-digit job growth since it started hiring engineers in Kirkland. It?s the third-largest engineering center ? behind a 3,200-employee New York office ? for the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant, which is approaching 40,000 employees overall.

Existing buildings...

[Rochard]

seems like they are doing something right...

[Heath]

Originally Posted by Rochard

seems like they are doing something right...

Yeah, last week or the week before their stock really shot up.

[clickhappy]

God I would love to work there