Putting aside years of fierce competition for scarce real estate in Mountain View, Google Inc. and LinkedIn Corp. have struck a “grand bargain” that redraws the map for each company’s presence in Silicon Valley, ending a stalemate that frustrated their development plans.

Executives say the blockbuster property swap — involving 1 million square feet of existing buildings, including LinkedIn's current headquarters, and 2.4 million square feet of future development capacity — benefits both sides: It will give Google control over critical puzzle pieces in North Bayshore, providing a path forward for the search giant’s futuristic vision there as LinkedIn departs the Google-heavy North Bayshore business district. At the same time, LinkedIn will gain property — elsewhere in Mountain View and in Sunnyvale — that allows it to build out a cohesive corporate campus years earlier than anticipated under previous plans for a costly planned mixed-use headquarters called Shoreline Commons......Continue Reading

See new Google Campus by BIG and Thomas Heatherwick

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