Google’s growth plans east of Seattle appear to be on pause, according to a new report from real estate firm Broderick Group.
Broderick’s Q1 market update reveals details about Google’s activity — or lack thereof — at its Kirkland Urban campus in Kirkland, Wash.
The Alphabet-owned giant has not built out space at a recently completed building, and has paused construction plans on another building at Kirkland Urban, according to Broderick.
Google opened its initial two Kirkland Urban buildings in 2022 as part of an event with Gov. Jay Inslee and other leaders that touted the company’s continued investment in the Seattle region where it first set up shop nearly two decades ago and employs thousands of workers.
Upon completion, the company said the four buildings would total 760,000 square feet of space. The fourth building was set to be completed in 2025.
The Puget Sound Business Journal first published a story with details from the Broderick report on Wednesday.
Broderick noted that Google recently terminated Salesforce-owned Tableau from 120,000 square feet of space at Kirkland Urban that the company was attempting to sublease. Broderick said this was initially “viewed as a positive for future growth.” But it said that Google “has opted not to build out that space.”
Broderick said in its report that Google has more than 400,000 square feet of “shell condition,” or space that is not yet finished, in Kirkland.
Google has two existing campuses in Kirkland, in addition to Kirkland Urban, which is home to retail and dining companies such as Shake Shack and Topgolf.
We reached out to Google for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
All signs pointed to growth for Google in Kirkland just a few years ago.
But last year the company backed out of plans for a big 1.5 million square-foot project on land occupied by a Lee Johnson auto dealership, just up the road from Kirkland Urban.
Other companies headquartered on the eastside of the Seattle region such as Microsoft and T-Mobile have vacated offices or placed space on the sublease market. Vacancy rates have more than doubled since 2020, according to Broderick, rising with the adoption of hybrid work policies.
But others such as TikTok owner ByteDance and The Pokémon Company have signed large new leases in recent months in Bellevue, Wash., where Amazon continues to build out its own expansion and expects to eventually employ 25,000 workers.
Google laid off 12,000 workers in January 2023 and has continued to trim its workforce. The company has more than 200 open jobs in the Seattle region. It has additional offices in Seattle’s Fremont and South Lake Union neighborhoods. Google employed more than 7,000 people in the Seattle area as of 2022.
Google requires employees in the office three days per week.
The company kickstarted a trend when it arrived in Kirkland, followed by Meta, eBay, Apple, and more than 100 other global tech firms that established engineering offices in the Seattle area, aiming to tap into the region’s vast technical talent base.
