Google's $138 Million Boulder Land Buy May Signal Expansion

BOULDER, CO -- Who needs Amazon.com in Denver, if Google is making a serious move in Boulder? Google already employs 650 highly paid tech workers in Thornton and Boulder, and predicts that number will double at the new Boulder campus. But now the company appears to be putting more skin in the game.

Boulder Co. property records revealed that the Silicon Valley-based tech company paid $138 million for two parcels near 30th and Pearl streets -- property that was supposedly going to be leased for three new four-story buildings.

Biz West reported that Google bought the land outright this month for its new Boulder campus.

Google bought the property from Glendale-based Forum Real Estate Group that used the entity Pearl Place Phase I Vertical LLC, which recently was merged with Pearl Place Associates LLC, to make the transaction, according to Boulder County public records...
In 2015, Darren Fisk, founder and chief executive of the Forum Real Estate Group, said the group would lease the buildings to Google. Fisk on Wednesday did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Google Inc.

Google's 2016 economic impact statement said the company planned to expand the Boulder engineering campus to 1,500 workers.

Already, local Realtors are assessing how staffing the planned 330,000 sq. ft. campus, directly across from Whole Foods, will drive demand for local housing. Boulder-based Google engineers earning an average of $125,000 per year. The company has posted 23 help-wanted ads for Boulder and Thornton-based employees in the past 90 days.

Read more at Biz West.

Image: Artist rendering of Boulder Google campus. Courtesy Google