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Google Spent $500 Million On Construction Since 2004, More Than All Local Homeowners Combined

This article is more than 8 years old.

Google already dominates the Internet. New data shows that it's also the big fish in terms of construction activity in its headquarters city, Mountain View, Calif.

The $356.68 billion (market cap) company spent more than $500 million on construction and remodeling from 2004 to 2014, according to an analysis of Mountain View city permit records conducted by San Francisco-based BuildZoom, a startup that helps people find residential contractors. That is about double the total spent by all Mountain View homeowners on remodeling during the same time period.

Of Google's 53,600 employees, 20,000 work in Mountain View, a company spokesperson said. Google's Mountain View head count equals roughly 25% the size of Mountain View's population (74,066 people); the company declined to provide data on how many employees actually live in Mountain View.

The average rent for a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment in Mountain View has jumped from $2,250 to $2,981 in the last two years, according to the local paper, the Mountain View Voice. In the surrounding Silicon Valley, the median monthly rent for an apartment was $2,291 in Q4 2014. (By "Silicon Valley" we mean the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif., Metropolitan Division, a geographic designation defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.)

Source: BuildZoom

The imbalance between jobs and housing in Mountain View is enabled in part by local development policy, which favors corporate development over housing: reportedly, the city has planned to accommodate as many as 42,000 new jobs, but only 8,000 new households, the Voice reported. Pro-housing city representatives were recently elected, replacing termed-out members who had opposed new housing, and in February said they'd take a serious look at developing more housing. Google has sent employees to city council meetings to speak in favor of more housing development.

The tech giant owns or leases some 75 properties within the city, most in its main headquarters and a handful in downtown Mountain View, according to BuildZoom. Here are a handful of the construction projects Google has embarked on in the last 10 years:

- $51 million on modifications to Google's headquarters at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, Calif.  94043. Among the changes: modifying restrooms, replacing dish-washing equipment, and refreshing the company's Charlie's Cafe, according to permit documents.

- $17.7 million modifying Masa Cafe, a taco restaurant in the Googleplex at 1015 Joaquin Rd., Mountain View, Calif.  94043

- $15.1 million for improvements at the Google Store, which sells gifts, T-shirts, and other Google gear, at 2000 Charleston Rd., Mountain View, Calif.  94043

Though $500 million might sound like a lot, Apple is spending 10 times that amount for its new $5 billion headquarters in Cupertino, just about six miles south of Google's capital. North, in San Francisco, Salesforce has agreed to pay $690 million for a 15-year lease and improvements for a new tower being developed by Hines (the lease starts in 2018).

BuildZoom participated in the prestigious Y Combinator start-up accelerator program in 2013, and counts as an investor Joe Lonsdale, the co-founder of data-mining company Palantir.