Report: Google grabs 35,000 sq ft building in San Fran Mission District to house recent acquisitions

According to a new report from The Financial Times, Google will soon be moving into a new 35,000 sq ft building outside of its main campus in Silicon Valley in San Francisco’s Mission District. While the site is apparently zoned for manufacturing, the report claims its sources at the company said the space is “part of an effort to recruit engineers” that don’t want to work in Silicon Valley and will be used “to house the start-ups it buys.”

In an intense war for tech talent, companies are hoping to improve their appeal to new employees by allowing them to live and work in desirable areas of the city rather than make the hour-long commute to Silicon Valley towns such as Mountain View, Palo Alto and Cupertino.

“When Google is buying companies, they don’t want to work in the big corporate building in San Francisco or Mountain View,” said a person in the neighbourhood. “So they are acquiring something cool in the Mission where engineers want to work.”

Google has acquired quite a few companies over the past year including Nest, Bitspin, Boston Dynamics, Bump, and more recently SlickLogin. The new space will only hold around 200 people according to the report, so it certainly won’t be the only building Google takes over as it expands into San Francisco. The company is also opening a new office in nearby South Park for its Google Ventures team, according to the report, while it already has a large building in San Fran’s SoMa district. The company has faced controversy over its impact on the housing market and other aspects of smaller San Francisco neighbourhoods in recent months, including protestors blocking buses that shuttle its employees from to and from its headquarters.