Google has confirmed that even though it has acquired Dublin’s tallest building – the 15-storey Montevetro building – it has also acquired the buildings that house its EMEA headquarters across the street on Barrow Street in Grand Canal Dock, Dublin 2.
In a statement, Google confirmed it acquired the two buildings that form its current EMEA headquarters on Barrow Street, where the majority of the 1,500 staff in Ireland are located.
The company has been renting this office space since 2004.
Last month, it emerged Google bought the Montevetro building from from Real Estate Opportunities plc (REO) for €99.5m to provide more space for existing operations and capacity for future growth.
The 67-metre tall building is comprised of 210,000 sq feet of prime office space. NAMA, which acquired the Montevetro building as security for a loan that transferred from a participating institution in April 2010, advanced the necessary working capital to complete the development. Treasury Holdings, NAMA and CIE collaborated to deliver the building to schedule.
Barrow Street becomes more ‘Googley’
Google, which is clearly in expansion mode in Europe, last year announced a further 200 people in a new operations centre. The new Dublin-based operations centre will be focused on the search engine giant’s location-based products, including Google Local and Google Maps.
“Barrow Street continues to be a great location for Google in Ireland, and taking ownership of these buildings will allow us to make even better use of the space and customise it to meet our needs,” explained said John Herlihy, VP, ad operations, and head of Google in Ireland.
“Google’s focus on innovation and creativity can be seen in the design of many of our offices across the world and we look forward to continuing to improve our existing home to make it even more Googley,” he quipped.
With such a dense concentration of Google activities on both sides of Barrow Street, perhaps the search giant should submit a petition to Dublin Corporation about renaming it Google Street.
