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The former Agilent Technologies, Inc. building at Page Mill Road and Park Boulevard will soon have a new tenant: Google.
A representative from the building’s owner, Jay Paul Company, made the announcement about the Mountain View-based Internet search giant’s plans to the California Avenue Area Development Association (CAADA), Wednesday morning.
Reactions were overwhelmingly positive.
“It’s terrific for Palo Alto to have a great tech company — such as Google, that’s doing so well — in Palo Alto,” Vice Mayor Larry Klein, CAADA’s City Council liaison, said.
“We’re glad to, in some degree, share Google with Mountain View,” he added.
It has been eight years since Google held offices in Palo Alto. In 1999, the company moved to a University Avenue office from a garage in Menlo Park. But less than a year later, Google moved again to its current location at the “Googleplex” at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, according to the company’s Web site.
So far, representatives from Google and the building’s owner, San Francisco-based real estate firm, Jay Paul Company, have declined to comment.
But business owners in the California Avenue area are excited about an influx of people to patronize their shops and restaurants, after a year of the Agilent building being vacant.
“We were surprised to hear it and happily surprised,” CAADA President and Realtor Ronna Devincenzi said.
“They have so many employees that California Avenue will be busy,” Michelle Emberton, of Hotel California, said.
Jay Paul Company is expected to make a public announcement Wednesday night at the Planning and Transportation Commission meeting.
On the meeting’s agenda is a proposal to rezone the Agilent building — at 395 Page Mill Road — from “General Manufacturing” to “Research, Office & Limited Manufacturing” to allow for “uses that are more consistent with this type of building,” according to a staff report prepared by Palo Alto Contract Planner Lorraine Weiss.
The former Agilent Technologies, Inc. headquarters sits on a 10-acre property and has a three-story, 212,000-square-foot office building, a two-level parking structure and capacity for 680 cars to park on the site.
Jay Paul Company bought the property at Page Mill and Park Boulevard from Agilent in May 2006, according to county records, and Agilent vacated the building last September, leaving it vacant.
No new development of the site is planned at this time, according to the staff report.
Additionally, Google will be expanding another, smaller part of its operations into Palo Alto.
And by small, they mean pint-size.
Soon, employees will be able to drop off their toddlers at Google’s new child-care center on East Bayshore Road in Palo Alto.
“We are a rapidly growing company and many of our employees have growing families,” Google spokesman Jon Murchinson said.
“It is important to us as a company to help employees find quality, affordable child care.”
Google already has day-care services in Mountain View and agreed last year to pay the Mountain View Whisman School District $650,000 a year for five years for the use of a closed elementary school for additional employee child care.
The new Palo Alto site, at 3801 East Bayshore Road near the Mountain View border, would add to those offerings. It is a little over a mile from Google’s main campus and four miles away from the Agilent building.
Google purchased the site and the adjacent 3803 East Bayshore Road in February of 2006, according to county records.
Google also purchased another adjacent site — 1129 to 1137 San Antonio Road — in March of 2006.
Palo Alto Contract Planner Stephen O’Connell said Google plans to merge and eventually redevelop the three parcels.
Murchinson said the company had “nothing to announce at this time” regarding the future of the Palo Alto site.
The company submitted plans last month to retrofit the interior of an existing two-story, 15,000-square-foot office building there, with an outdoor children’s play area.
Providing day care services is consistent with Google’s philosophy of giving back to its employees for their hard work and long hours. Employee benefits have been the subject of publicity over the past few years — from its onsite cafeterias to its Wi-Fi-equipped shuttle service for commuters.
On its job listing Web site, Google touts its employee perks at the Googleplex, saying, “We know that appreciation is the best motivation.”
Appealing to potential job applicants, the site also lists amenities such as an “on-site doctor and dentist; massage and yoga; professional development opportunities; on-site laundry; nearby day care; shoreline running trails; and plenty of snacks to get you through the day.”
It sounds like the average Google employee will want to live in Palo Alto too, given the childcare centre as well as the new offices. This means that housing sales of both new and existing homes will be affected, and of course ultimately, more students for our schools.
I hope the school board is watching this.
We already do live here.
In case you hadn’t noticed, Google employees are already living in Palo Alto. Why in the world would opening an office in Palo Alto vs. one in Mtn View right next to Palo Alto make a bit of difference to housing choices? We have a lot of concerns on our plate, but the aefect on housing sales by this move is not one of them.
Welcome Google!!!
Resident, I may be missing something. Whether Google moves into the Agilent building or some other company, the new tenant’s emps will tend to live nearby and buy new and existing homes. We have the same number of homes either way. Unless Google emps have more kids than others, not sure how their moving in impacts the school population. No?
Fred
Welcome Welcome and remember your nieghbors on Park Blvd.
GOOGLERS don’t marry, they don’t have children, they are this generations counter-culture. They take their cue from their bosses and live in apartments. Or, as a relative of mine who works for GOOGLE says: “Who’d want to live in Palo Alto it’s full of old people.”
I’d argue that we have already been seeing the effects of Google on home prices.
To TL: What a joke! Googlers don’t marry?!? Of course they do. Are they planning to put all their money in a bank and stay single for the rest of their lives? Please. As for your relative’s statement: when he gets older and wants to buy a home and have a family, I can assure you that he will look at houses in Palo Alto.
The parcel of land at Park Blvd. and Page Mill Road is a great choice for easy access for those employees who will be having to commute off the 101 and the 280. I do have one concern…the bike lane there at Park and Page Mill..have you ever tried biking it? It is a pretty scary ride as the lane on Park is situated as if your bike is in the middle of a freeway. Look at it next time you are headed from Calif. Ave. towards Page Mill. This should be rerouted somehow……..
Welcome (back) to Palo Alto, Google!!!
In 1953 you would have found me at the front steps of the H.P. building there at Park and Page Mill Road selling Girl Scout Cookies for 50 cents a box………(it was a great sales mecca for me!!!) Just thought I would pass that little tid bit along so it may reach another budding entrepreneur….
were I a PA resident, this would dissapoint me. There is really no benefit to PA in this- Google will still run their sales through the corp HQ in MV, so there will be no tax revenue for PA from a building that used to be one of the top 5 revenue generators in town.
But think of all the money the employees in the building will spend in PA at lunch time and after work. An empty building brings in zero, a building full of workers doesn’t.
true enough, res, but that would be true of any new company in that bldg. I’d suggest that given googles penchant to offer hefty benefits (ie- free food) to their employees, Calif ave will benefit less from google then they did from agilent.