St. John's Terminal at 550 Washington St./ Rendering courtesy of COOKFOX
NEW YORK CITY—Google has signed a deal with Oxford Properties Group, the global real estate group of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, to lease the former St. John's Terminal. The internet tech giant will occupy the entire 1.3 million square feet of redeveloped office space at 550 Washington St. The property stands at the corner of Houston and West streets in Hudson Square.
Oxford and the Canada Pension Plan purchased the south portion of the terminal for $700 million, with Oxford owning a controlling 52.5% interest.
Google is investing $1 billion to develop a 1.7 million square-foot campus in the West Village, called Google Hudson Square. It includes 315 Hudson, 350 Hudson and 550 Washington streets.
Google has also purchased Chelsea Market, 111 Eighth Ave. and at Pier 57 is leasing 320,000 square feet of office space and providing 50,000 square feet of public space.
Last October, Oxford and the Canada Pension Plan unveiled an adaptive re-use plan designed by COOKFOX. The structure is the former freight terminal of the High Line originally built in 1934.
“Since we launched in New York in 2010, we have built a significant platform with over $15 billion in assets under management. As we build our development platform in the US, projects like St. John's Terminal, and collaborations like the one we've built with Google represent the types of projects and partnerships we look forward to building upon,” says Kevin Egan, head of investments, North America at Oxford. “St. John's Terminal highlights the evolution of our US business and we've been able to create a transformative vision supported by one of the world's most innovative companies.”
“Google is confident that 550 Washington will be a great location for our growing New York City workforce,” says William Floyd, Google's director of public policy. “We look forward to working with Oxford and the local community to ensure this iconic building continues adding to the vibrancy of the neighborhood.”
The first phase of work, removing the overpass covering Houston Street at the north side of the building, is expected to be completed in July. Oxford was also one of the developers with Related Companies of Hudson Yards. Its global portfolio encompasses more than 100 million square feet.
Oxford was represented in-house by Adam Frazier and CBRE's Paul Amrich and Howard Fiddle. CBRE also represented Google.
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Betsy Kim
Betsy Kim was the bureau chief, East Coast, and New York City reporter for Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com. As a lawyer and journalist, Betsy has worked as the director of editorial and content for LexisNexis Lawyers.com, a TV/multi-media journalist for NBC and CBS affiliated TV stations in the Midwest, and an associate producer at Court TV.
