Google’s plans to purchase the St. John Terminal for $2.1 billion underscore a real estate trend that has been well under way for years—the tech industry’s takeover of Manhattan office space.
Since 2009, when the U.S. was coming out of a year-and-a-half-long recession, the amount of space occupied by New York City’s top five tech companies, as measured by square feet of office space in the city, has exploded. The footprint of those five companies on the city expanded nearly 30-fold, with the largest locations clustered in areas along the island’s West Side.