Google growth: Tech giant finds new home blocks from Tannery

CTV Kitchener: Google growing Google is moving to a bigger home just a few blocks away from its current space in downtown Kitchener’s Tannery. Krista Simpson reports.

Google's search for new office space in Kitchener is taking it outside its current home at the Tannery – but not all that far.

The tech behemoth has signed on to lease 221,000 square feet of space in the Breithaupt Block facility – including 36,000 square feet that has yet to been built.

“We’ve signed a lease for new office space at the Breithaupt Block to accommodate the natural growth of our engineering and development team at our Kitchener-Waterloo office,” Leslie Church of Google Canada tells CTV News in a statement.

Craig Beattie, a partner in Perimeter Development – which owns the Breithaupt Block – says an additional three floors will be added onto a two-storey building at the front of the development to accommodate Google’s needs.

That addition was slated to happen eventually anyhow, but Google’s interest is pushing up the timetable.

“It shows great commitment on Google’s part to this region, and in particular to downtown Kitchener,” says Beattie.

Google, which came to Waterloo Region in 2005 and currently employs 240 people locally, will take up about 75 per cent of the office space in the former Breithaupt rubber plant.

Beattie says there’s only about 8,000 square feet still sitting unleased, but he’s already hearing expressions of interest on the back of Google’s announcement.

Michael Polzl, a commercial real estate broker with Cushman & Wakefield Waterloo Region, says Google’s move could be a catalyst for more tech companies to relocate to Kitchener’s north end.

“I think it’s tremendous. It continues to solidify the interest in tech companies moving to Waterloo Region, expanding within Waterloo Region,” he says.

In addition to the three-storey expansion, a glass bridge will be built to connect Google’s two buildings in the block.