Construction Started on Google's New Kirkland Building

Google's planned expansion at its Kirkland campus is underway with workers breaking ground at the site of a curvy new building spanning 180,000 square feet.

Renderings of the new addition show a two-story building with green space on part of the roof.

Commercial real estate developers in the Puget Sound angled to accommodate Google’s growth. In the end, the Mountain View, Calif.-based tech company chose SRM Development out of Spokane, which also developed the existing three-building campus for Google. Terms of the development deal were not disclosed.

Google officials said the new building, which is being built west of the three existing buildings at 747 Sixth St. S., will have many of the perks that the company is known for. Amenities already in place at Kirkland include massage centers, a climbing wall, a dog park and even kayak rentals for employees who want to go for a paddle on Lake Washington, about a mile west of the campus.

Google has more than 40,000 employees worldwide. Company spokeswoman Darcy Nothnagle said more than 1,000 work in the Puget Sound region, with about 60 percent of those in Kirkland.

The Kirkland campus already is Google’s third-largest engineering center in the country. Employees there work on products including Google+, Cloud and Chrome.

Based on the standard formula of tech companies taking 200 square feet of office space for each employee, the Kirkland expansion would accommodate about 900 additional employees.

Architecture company DLR Group, which has a Seattle office, designed the new building. Construction is scheduled to be done by the end of year.