Chelsea Market building at 95 Ninth Avenue

Google is looking across the street to the Chelsea Market building for more office space, after some attempts to soak up additional space at its headquarters at 111 Eighth Avenue were thwarted, Crain’s reported.

The Internet and advertising giant is in talks to take about 75,000 square feet at 95 Ninth Avenue, the space across the street from 111 Eighth (where offices are in at least one instance connected via slide). The company leased 95,000 square feet at 95 Ninth, already an expansion from their previous space, about two months ago. If the pending lease is signed, Google’s total square footage at the space will be around 300,000. [more]

Chelsea Market

Google already has its own building at 111 Eighth Avenue that it bought for $1.9 billion, but now the tech giant is set to lease approximately 94,000 square feet at Chelsea Market, according to the Wall Street Journal. (See video after the jump)

Eastdil’s Doug Harmon and 550 Madison Avenue

Eastdil Secured beat CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, Jones Lang LaSalle and Newmark Grubb Knight Frank to market Sony’s 36-story building at 550 Madison Avenue, the New York Post reported. Sony had considered selling the 800,000-square-foot property since the beginning of the summer, after the company posted a nearly $6 billion loss during the last fiscal year.

As previously reported, the Sony U.S. headquarters could be worth between $700 million and $1 billion. Eastdil is also currently behind the marketing of Worldwide Plaza, which the Post said could fetch over $1 billion. [more]

111 Eighth Avenue

Advertising giant Deutsch will renew its lease for 100,000 square feet at 111 Eighth Avenue, the New York Observer reported. This further derails Google’s plans to expand in the 3 million square-foot building it bought at the end 2010 for a record $1.8 billion.

Google had been in talks to pay the ad firm, owned by Interpublic Group, to choose not to exercise its option to renew. Deutsch had considered inking a lease at 11 Madison Avenue, the Observer said. [more]

111 Eighth Avenue

As if the $1.8 billion Google spent to acquire 111 Eighth Avenue in 2010 wasn’t enough, now the search giant will be hit by a massive property tax bill increase — 17 percent greater than the one it incurred last year.

After some delay, the city will send out its updated property tax assessments, which take affect in July, over the next few days, and according to the Wall Street Journal most bills will increase. [more]

111 Eighth AvenueInside Google’s new 111 Eighth Avenue digs, the search engine is facing off against ad giant Deutsch for space on the 14th and 15 floors, the New York Post reported.

Donny Deutsch’s firm has a 140,000-square-foot lease it inked with the previous owners that runs through 2013, and comes with a renewal option to expand at market rate — which the Post pegs at about $70 per square foot in the Meatpacking District. At the same time, Google wants to expand within its new building. … [more]

Taconic Investment Partners co-CEO Paul Pariser and 111 Eighth Avenue

Taconic Investment Partners, the firm that was part of a group that sold the Chelsea office building 111 Eighth Avenue to Google last December for $1.8 billion, completed raising $220 million for a fund focused on buying New York City properties, the company said in a statement today.

The Chelsea-based firm is targeting “value-add and opportunistic multifamily, office and retail assets in New York City,” the company said, expecting to earn a 15 percent to 17 percent net return on the investments.

“The shifting real estate landscape and capital markets disruption are likely to provide opportunities for significant long-term upside potential,” company co-CEO Paul Pariser, said in the release.

Even as Taconic did well with the Google sale, in other deals it has suffered, for example at 375 Pearl Street. Taconic purchased the tower in 2007 for $173 million and sold it this June for $120 million. – Adam Pincus… [more]

More and more of the big technology companies are interested in space in Manhattan, in particular because of their desire to be near the advertising companies on Madison Avenue, the New York Times reported. During the upcoming Advertising Week, Yahoo will be able to present its new offices in Viacom’s Times Square building to potential advertising clients, in a way that it wasn’t able to do before.

Yahoo’s Times Square suite at 1540 Broadway has purple-hued conference rooms, a lobby with custom graphics and door pulls shaped like exclamation points, and a dynamic design that are symbolic of a high-tech company. … [more]

Jim Breyer of Accel Partners and 111 Eighth Avenue
Venture capital firm Accel Partners is setting up shop on the 16th floor of 111 Eighth Avenue, the Chelsea building former tech startup Google bought for $1.8 billion last year, the New York Post reported. The space is the technology investment firm’s permanent New York City headquarters when conducting business with the city’s growing tech scene, largely centered on the area between Union Square and the Flatiron District dubbed “Silicon Alley.” The office will be headed by Jim Breyer, a lead investor in Facebook, and a member of the board of directors of Walmart and Dell. [Post, 2nd item]… [more]

Clockwise: 111 Eighth Avenue, Meatpacking District-inspired chandelier, coffee cup-based kitchen, old New York phone booths, and dining hall with city graphics (interior photos: AM New York)

The fifth floor of Google’s new New York headquarters is designed with the theme “Hidden New York”, and am New York got pictures of the industrial-style designed space. There’s the Meatpacking District-inspired conference room with real meat hooks used for chandeliers, a meeting room inspired by a city studio apartment with couches furnished from halves of old-fashioned claw-foot bathtubs, walk-in phone booths replicating those found years ago in New York, a kitchen based on the “We Are Happy to Serve You” coffee cups and a dining hall with wall graphics that mirror the view from the windows. See photos from am New York above. [am New York]… [more]