Google’s big push for elbow room in Silicon Valley

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. — For the past six years, Google has been expanding bit by bit beyond its Mountain View headquarters. But this year, the tech titan’s plan for a massive new push into San Jose coupled with big land buys in Sunnyvale show just how big Google’s footprint may get.

If everything the tech titan has in the works comes to pass, Google could double its square footage in Silicon Valley, potentially making room for roughly another 31,000 or more employees.

The tech titan’s outposts have already popped up at sites well beyond the company’s iconic Googleplex headquarters in Mountain View.

Google and its owner, Alphabet, have cut a swath of real estate deals in San Francisco, San Bruno, Redwood City, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale — and most recently, downtown San Jose as well as significant new acquisitions in Sunnyvale.

Google’s facilities expansion mirrors the increasingly diverse enterprises beneath the Alphabet banner. As Google plants flags outside of Mountain View, some of its technology ventures are exploring frontiers well beyond its original mission of internet searches.

“The Google that exists today is not the Google of 10 years ago,” said Reed Payne, an executive vice-president with Kidder Mathews. “They are in almost every line of business you can imagine.”

In 2007, Google had 16,800 employees worldwide, a company annual report shows. In 2016, Google’s team had grown to just over 72,000 workers.

In Mountain View, the company employs 20,000.

Mike Kasperzak has served twice as Mountain View’s mayor and as a city council member for 16 years, giving him a front-row seat to Google’s Bay Area expansion.

“Every time I hear about Google taking space somewhere else, I say ‘Oh no, don’t leave Mountain View,’ but I also say, ‘Oh whew, that’s 5,000 Google employees that we don’t have to accommodate in here,’” Kasperzak said. “The bottom line is: Mountain View remains Google’s headquarters.”

But 2017 ushered in a stunning new set of Google expansions that could tack another eight million to 10 million square feet onto what Google owned at the end of last year.

“This is unprecedented in the history of Silicon Valley’s growth and expansion,” said Carl Guardino, president of Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which represents businesses in attempting to shape public policy. “What we see with Google is one iconic company that is willing to make a huge investment in their future and the future of Silicon Valley.”