Google to build £1bn UK HQ in London

 
By Ed Hammond and Bede McCarthy
 

Google has completed a £1bn deal to build a new UK headquarters on 2.4 acres of disused land behind King’s Cross Station, underlining the global technology industry’s commitment to London.
 
The internet search group confirmed on Thursday that it would start building a new 11 storey office block on the site, which it would use to consolidate operations from its existing offices in London. The land was acquired from the Kings Cross Central Partnership.
 
The deal, one of the most valuable property transactions in the UK since the start of the financial crisis, follows a string of high-profile moves by technology groups, including Skype, Oracle and Amazon, to take up office space in the UK capital.
 
Matt Brittin, vice-president for northern and central Europe at Google said: “This is a big investment by Google, we’re committing further to the UK – where computing and the web were invented. It’s good news for Google, for London and for the UK.”
 
Google’s London staff are currently split between two offices in Victoria and one in Holborn. The move will allow the company to house all London staff under one roof. The company plans to keep its office in Manchester.
 
The group came under fire in November, when a parliamentary select committee accused the it of “immoral tax avoidance”.
 
Google also operates Campus, a seven-storey centre in Shoreditch that offers work spaces to technology and media start-ups as part of London’s Tech City project.
 
Simon Allford, a partner at Allford Hall Monaghan Morris, the architects for the project, said the building would “articulate a conversation between the world within and the city beyond”.

Technology, media and telecommunications companies have branched out from the traditional heartland of Old Street during the past two years and into the City of London, the West End and beyond.
 
Major deals last year include Skype taking 88,000 sq ft at Waterhouse Square, Weber Shandwick, the communications group, signing 65,000 sq ft in the same building, and Oracle acquiring 22,000 sq ft at 1 South Place.

TMT companies are on course to absorb an additional 1.2m sq ft by 2014, an area twice the size of the Shard, London’s tallest skyscraper, according to a recent study by BNP Paribas Real Estate. The demand, if it materialises, will provide a tonic to London’s commercial property landlords, who are suffering from declining uptake from other sectors.
 
GM Real Estate, DTZ and Savills acted for the King’s Cross Central Partnership./Financial Times