Advertisement

Google in talks to buy £750m London office complex

Central Saint Giles
Central Saint Giles

Google is reportedly in talks to purchase a £750m London office complex in what would be one of the biggest commercial property deals this year.

The tech giant is in talks to buy the Central Saint Giles development in Holborn, central London, React News reported.

Designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, the brief for the building was to be colourful and different from the typical city centre office block.

The property is co-owned by Legal & General Investment Management and the Mitsubishi Estate and was completed in 2010.  Google already lets 40pc of the property, which it moved into in 2011.

Google is also in the process of constructing a new campus in King's Cross, which will have the capability to house up to 4,500 employees. A 92,000sq ft "landscraper", is set to contain a rooftop garden and running track.

The King's Cross development was approved in 2017 and will cost the company £1bn in total, according to the Architect's Journal.

The use of Central Saint Giles would give Google further flexibility with its King's Cross development, which does not have a completion date.

Google has previously said employees will work from home until July 2021, and will encourage staff to combine remote working with time in the office.

Sundar Pichai, chief executive, said last month: "We firmly believe that in-person, being together, having a sense of community is super important when you have to solve hard problems and create something new so we don’t see that changing. But we do think we need to create more flexibility and more hybrid models".

Google and Legal and General did not respond to requests for comment.