WebProNews

A few days ago, Google bought (or leased, actually) another 130,000 square feet of office space in New York City.  The new offices are located across from the old ones, creating (at least mentally) the image of another Googleplex.  The connection is also creating a lot of questions.

“Why?” is the main one.  Granted, Google’s expanding just about everywhere, but the company’s series of moves in New York have been especially unexpected.  “To put this expansion in perspective, Google’s Manhattan presence in 2002 was limited to 23,000 square feet at 1440 Broadway,” noted Mark Wellborn for The New York Observer.  “Today, five years later, the company has just south of 500,000 square feet of space in Manhattan.”

That’s an increase of about 2000 percent over the course of five years, in case you were wondering.

So, back to the matter of “why.”  Wellborn stated “that the property sits on a massive fiber-optic network, extremely valuable for a company like Google, which depends on the rapid relay of information.”  Seems reasonable enough.

Another possibility, as suggested (somewhat facetiously, I expect) by Valleywag’s Owen Thomas, is that Google’s making room for Marcy Simon, a woman who may or may not be Eric Schmidt’s girlfriend, but is definitely joining the company.

In any event, Google just got a lot bigger.  Again.  Realtors must go into frenzies over meeting these guys.