Google is expanding its presence in Los Angeles with the $120 million purchase of a dozen acres of vacant land in the Playa Vista area on the city's west side.
The parcel is zoned for nearly 900,000 square feet of commercial space that could house offices or studios, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.
The plot is next to a historic hangar where aviator Howard Hughes built his famous "Spruce Goose" airplane. Google also was expected to lease the hangar, which recently housed soundstages for movie and television, according to the newspaper.
City Councilman Mike Bonin, who represents the area, said the purchase "brands Playa Vista as the tech and innovation capital of Los Angeles."
The Mountain View-based tech giant wouldn't detail its plans for the properties.
Last year Microsoft opened a 20,000-square-foot space in Playa Vista, a neighborhood near major freeways, several neighborhoods and Los Angeles International Airport. Facebook has operations nearby, as do other major media companies and ad agencies.
Three years ago, Google opened a campus in Venice, where it leased 100,000 square feet in three buildings for about 600 employees. One of those buildings is the famous Binoculars Building, a three-story office on Main Street designed by architect Frank Gehry.
A Google spokeswoman said the company, which typically likes to expand near its existing properties, will continue to rent the 69,000-square-foot Binoculars Building. Google views the Playa Vista land purchase as a long-term investment and has no particular design in mind for the site.
Google also rents a 41,000-square-foot video production facility for subsidiary YouTube in a renovated former Hughes building in Playa Vista.
Google already has bought or rented about 6.2 million square feet of space this year in the San Francisco Bay Area, bringing its total there to 15 million square feet, according to real estate brokerage statistics cited by the Times.
Sean “Diddy” Combs seeks bail, citing changed circumstances and new evidence
Sean "Diddy" Combs filed a new request for bail on Friday, saying changed circumstances, along with new evidence, mean the hip-hop mogul should be allowed to prepare for a May trial from outside jail.
Lawyers for Combs filed the request in Manhattan federal court, where his previous requests for bail have been rejected by two judges since his September arrest on racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges that he coerced and abused women for years with help from a network of associates and employees, while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.
He has been awaiting a May 5 trial at a federal detention facility in Brooklyn.
In their new court filing, lawyers for Combs say they are proposing a "far more robust" bail package that would subject the entertainer to strict around-the-clock security monitoring and near-total restrictions on his ability to contact anyone but his lawyers. But the amount of money they attach to the package remains $50 million, as they proposed before.
They also cite new evidence that they say "makes clear that the government's case is thin." That evidence, the lawyers said, refutes the government's claim that a March 2016 video showing Combs physically assaulting his then-girlfriend occurred during a coerced "freak off," a sexually driven event described in the indictment against Combs.
They wrote that the encounter was instead "a minutes-long glimpse into a complex but decade-long consensual relationship" between Combs and his then-girlfriend.
The lawyers argued that the jail conditions Combs is experiencing at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn violate his constitutional... Read More