MOUNTAIN VIEW — A big Mountain View office building leased by Google has been bought for nearly $170 million in a transaction that appears to underscore the allure of owning a building whose tenant is the search giant.
LH Shoreline has bought the building at 1001 N. Shoreline Blvd. in Mountain View for $169.9 million, according to Santa Clara County property records. Public documents also show the building was leased in late 2015 to Google.
The sale price in the March 16 transaction marks a huge increase from 2017, the last year the brand-new building and the land beneath it were assessed at a property value of $60.4 million.
“It’s partly the Google effect,” said Hallgrimson, an executive managing director with Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial realty brokerage. “But it also reflects the difference between a building leased on a long-term basis to a credit tenant versus an empty building.”
It’s also possible that Google itself might wind up buying the building from the new owner, which, according to public documents, is an affiliate of San Francisco-based Stockbridge Real Estate, a realty investment management firm. Stockbridge also owns the Bay Meadows mixed-use village that includes offices, residences and retail in San Mateo.
Mountain View-based Google has negotiated a right of first offer to purchase the building, the county records show. Google has been buying and leasing an array of buildings and development sites in Silicon Valley in recent years, with Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and downtown San Jose chief among the primary areas of interest for the tech titan.
Construction crews and machinery were visible on Monday working in numerous places both inside and outside the building.
To undertake the purchase of the 133,000-square-foot building, Stockbridge obtained $110.5 million in financing from Deutsche Bank, according to a mortgage recorded with the county.
“This building is in a good location,” Hallgrimson said. “It has great freeway access. It’s an extension of Google’s Shoreline footprint.”
