Google attempts Nike buyout at 111 Eighth

Google isn’t wasting any time in its plan to gobble up additional office space at 111 Eighth Avenue, the mammoth Chelsea office building that it purchased for $1.8 billion late last year. According to a Real Estate Weekly source, the search engine giant has already made a buyout offer of an undisclosed sum for Nike’s 100,000 square feet of sixth-floor space at the 3 million-square-foot property, which was declined. Nike’s lease expires in 2014, but Google apparently wants to expand more quickly than that. The source said Nike rejected the offer because it’s currently paying less than market-rate and doesn’t want to move early. [REW]