Northeast

NEW YORK CITY — Google has announced plans to acquire St. John’s Terminal, a 1.3 million-square-foot office redevelopment underway in Manhattan that will anchor the search engine giant’s Hudson Square campus. Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) intends to purchase the development site at 550 Washington St., which the company signed a lease agreement for in 2018, for approximately $2.1 billion. The company is exercising its purchase agreement with the landlord and developer, an ownership group comprising Toronto-based Oxford Properties Group and CPP Investments, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Journal also reports the transaction is the most expensive sale of a single U.S. office building since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, citing data from research firm Real Capital Analytics. The sale is also among the priciest for a single office property in U.S. history. Google plans to open its offices at 550 Washington by mid-2023. Although the company expects to operate the office with a flexible hybrid approach to in-office versus work-from-home concepts in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Google says that “coming together in person to collaborate and build community will remain an important part of our future.” The St. John’s Terminal transaction is expected to close in …