Google Opens Research Center in Michigan

Google is planning to trace back the roots of Larry Page, one of the two co-founders of Google, and has announced that it will open a research center in Michigan. The downtown of Ann Arbor, the hometown of the University of Michigan, where Page earned his undergraduate degree in engineering, will also be the home of the new Google center.

"This is a huge, huge, huge, huge thing," said Gov. Jennifer Granholm that actually made the announcement. "It's a tremendous statement about Michigan having a cutting-edge work force."

"It's going to be a blockbuster deal," James Epolito, president and chief executive of the Michigan Economic Development Corp., told The Detroit News. "We have been working closely with Google for a long time on this."

Ann Arbor was chosen after a close consideration of nearly 50 potential cities to house the research center. In the city, Google will acquire some 240.000 square feet of office space, and the largest proportion of it will host a technology and call center. The rest of 40.000 sf will be dedicated to the library digitization project that is somewhat stagnant due to lawsuits over copyright infringements.

The new research center will employ an estimated 1.000 people, and will be a breath of fresh air for a region plagued by unemployment. To close the deal, Google was offered no less than $38 million in tax breaks for a period of 20 years.