The “Googleplex” is back on. After the Mountain View City Council announced last year that they would be awarding the majority of the land needed to construct the futurist masterplan designed for Google by BIG and Thomas Heatherwick to fellow tech giant LinkedIn, the future of the ambitious glass-canopied corporate campus seemed to be dead in the water, with the architects even releasing images of a pared down design that would occupy a much smaller footprint. But all of that has now changed thanks to a surprising property swap between the two companies that will see over three million square feet of real estate switch hands.
The deal involves 1 million square feet of existing buildings (including LinkedIn’s current headquarters), and 2.4 million square feet of undeveloped real-estate. Google will receive the land necessary to see through their original Googleplex vision, while in return, LinkedIn will obtain property elsewhere in Mountain View and nearby Sunnyvale that will allow it to build a single cohesive corporate campus of their own.
With LinkedIn out of the way, Google is now free to pursue constructing the massive development that Google has described as “lightweight block-like structures which can be moved around easily as we invest in new product area,” covered by “large translucent canopies” that will “[control] the climate inside yet [let] in light and air.”
For more information on the specifics of the deal, you can view the transaction details at Silicon Valley Business Journal, here.
News via Silicon Valley Business Journal. H/T Recode.
