14 DAY TRIAL // Google is on a hiring spree. The company has always been growing and hiring, but it plans to do even more of it this year, Google wants 2011 to be its biggest year in terms of new hires ever. There's just one problem, Google needs more and more space to house all these new employees.
It's looking to build some futuristic, ultra green facility near its current location, but, in the meantime, it's leasing six additional buildings, across Highway 101 in Mountain View.
It plans to rent a seventh one in 2013 and has the option of building another two on the site. In total, the nine new buildings will give Google an additional 630,000 square feet of space.
The company already rents or owns 4.3 million square feet of space in Mountain View spread across 65 buildings.
Most are centered around the same location, the so-called Googleplex, but its continuing expansion means that the company is looking at locations a bit further away as well. The new location is about three miles away from the main headquarters.
"We had two other major companies interested in our project, and we had been in discussions with them for several months, and then Google came along and was much more intense," John Lovewell, partner with Keenan Lovewell Ventures, the owner of campus rented by Google, told Mercury News.
"They were ready to make a commitment -- a specific commitment -- very quickly, and that's why we ended up making a deal with them," he added.
Google is also said to be looking to expand and build new headquarters with an additional 600,000 square feet. But Google is looking at several other locations to either lease or raise new buildings on, since it plans to continue to grow at this rate for the next several years.