Google Signs NASA Lease

Google signs 40-year lease to guarantee office space with NASA.

Google Inc announced Wednesday that it has signed a 40-year lease to build a new office complex that will be located on a federal government research center near the Internet search leader's Silicon Valley headquarters.

The 1.2 million-square-foot campus fulfills a vision that Google first laid out with the NASA Ames Research Center in 2005.

Google will use the extra space for the thousands of workers it expects to hire as tries to mine more profits from the Internet's advertising market and expand into other areas of technology and media.

In the last four years, Google has added more than 17,000 employees to boost its payroll to 19,156 workers. The growth has prompted the company to lease or buy many of the smaller offices circling its headquarters, a 1-million-square-foot campus that Google purchased for $319 million in 2006.

The NASA deal sets Google's initial rent for 42.2 acres of land at $3.66 million for each year. Construction will begin in 2013 and will include some housing for employees. Google expects to start the final phase of the campus in 2022.

Google hopes the site of its new offices will make it easier to draw on the brain power of NASA's rocket scientists and give it another competitive advantage over its rivals.