Google has taken the wraps off its new Michigan office and detailed plans for the rapid expansion of its advertising unit in the home of the University of Michigan.
The high-tech ribbon-cutting for the Mountain View, Calif.-based online company brought out political leaders and featured tours of the open office as well as demonstrations of Google applications.
The facility is the sales office for Google’s AdWords program, which allows advertisers to create keyword-based ads that display alongside online search results.
Google has said the office – where it set up shop a few weeks ago – should be AdWords’ home for at least the next four years and eventually will employ as many as 1,000 people. That makes Google the single largest private office user to move to Ann Arbor’s central business district in years.
David Fischer, Google’s vice president of online sales and operations, said he is “thrilled” with the workers he has found in Michigan, saying they are talented and match the company’s belief that Googlers – as they are known internally – take work seriously, but not themselves.
“(Google) is perhaps the most obvious example … of what we are trying to build as we reshape the next Michigan,” said Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who attended the event. We love our auto industry, but we know we have to enlarge this economy.
The company is expected to occupy 80,000 square feet, or about 70 percent of the McKinley Towne Centre in downtown Ann Arbor by early fall, said Robert Kraemer, principal of Kraemer Design Group. The Detroit-based firm is providing the architectural and interior design work.
Google also has a small AdWords office in the Detroit suburb of Birmingham and another Ann Arbor location stemming from its partnership with the University of Michigan to scan books from the school’s library. Another Michigan connection: Google co-founder Larry Page is a graduate of the university and a native of East Lansing.
The office adds Great Lakes flavor to the West Coast vibe: Conference rooms have been named after Michigan cities and towns – and employees decided it would be appropriate for the rooms on upper floors to take names from the Upper Peninsula, and lower floors would get names from the Lower Peninsula. Each room includes indigenous trinkets often sent by the communities themselves.
Google’s growth has been welcome to a region roiling from manufacturing job cuts and plant closings. It’s been a particular bright spot for Ann Arbor, a high-tech hub about 35 miles west of Detroit that learned in January it would lose about 2,100 jobs when drugmaker Pfizer Inc. announced plans to close a research and development center.
Michael Finney, president of the regional economic development agency Ann Arbor Spark, said Google’s culture and quick growth are "radically different" from any he has seen. He declined to reveal specifics but said it’s also serving as a catalyst for potential spinoff: His office has recently been contacted by companies from across the country as well as Canada, Spain and Israel interested in the area.
“Our goal is for this to be a place for Google to grow – and become a real magnet for the best talent,” he said.