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Long-Awaited Google Offices Open in Fulton Market [PHOTOS]

By Stephanie Lulay | December 4, 2015 8:54am | Updated on December 5, 2015 9:00am
 The lobby of Google's new Chicago offices in the West Loop features a wall of rotating digital artwork.
The lobby of Google's new Chicago offices in the West Loop features a wall of rotating digital artwork.
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DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay

WEST LOOP — A sign of the neighborhood's future, Google Chicago's much-anticipated new West Loop offices opened in the former Fulton Market Cold Storage building Thursday. 

With 650 employees based out of the new West Loop headquarters, Google Chicago now occupies about 200,000 square feet and five floors of the new 550,000-square-foot 1K Fulton building at 1000 W. Fulton Market. Google Chicago previously operated out of offices at 20 W. Kinzie St. in River North for more than a decade.

Gov. Bruce Rauner, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. (27th) joined Google leaders for a ribbon cutting ceremony at the new offices Thursday.

"Our move to the West Loop neighborhood, adding 52,000 square feet, signals Google's commitment to growing in the city and anchoring its presence in the Chicago community," said Margo Georgiadis, president of American Operations at Google. "Google is proud to share this day with our neighbors, and we look forward to all [we] will continue to do in the great city of Chicago."

The lobby of Google's new Chicago offices at 1000 W. Fulton Market in the West Loop. [DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay]

A visitor tries out a treadmill desk at the opening of Google's new Chicago offices in Fulton Market Thursday. [DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay]

A sixth-floor wall in Google's new Chicago offices in the West Loop features a Google map. [DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay]

Developer Sterling Bay bought the former 385,000-square-foot Fulton Market Cold Storage building at 1000 W. Fulton Market in October 2012. The building was originally constructed in 1923.

Working with Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture, Sterling Bay revamped the property into a 535,000-square-foot LEED-certified building consisting of the renovated original 10-story building connected to a new six-story building to the west.

Boka restaurants Swift & Sons and Cold Storage, a restaurant within Swift & Sons that opened this week, are also in the 1K Fulton building.

Instead of printed newspapers, employees can take in the news on virtual news stand tablets at Google's new Chicago offices in 1K Fulton building. [DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay]

The sixth-floor of Google's new Chicago offices in the West Loop. [DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay]

$50,000 Mercy Home grant

Coinciding with the debut of Google's new offices, West Loop-based non-profit Mercy Home for Boys & Girls received a $50,000 technology grant from Google Chicago.

With the grant, Mercy Home will buy 88 tablets that will be used to track the progress of its youths and provide real-time individual and group data that can be used to improve the care it provides to children.

The Rev. Scott Donahue, Mercy Home CEO, said the support form Google will help the non-profit more thoroughly analyze the impact of services the non-profit provides to kids.

“The real-time data captured through this new system will provide us with the information we need to improve the care for young people affected by trauma," Donahue said.

Mercy Home for Boys & Girls' Hay Boys Campus is at 1140 W. Jackson Blvd. in the West Loop. The non-profit serves more than 600 children who have suffered abuse, neglect or poverty each year.

Google's new Chicago offices are in the new 1000 W. Fulton Market development in the West Loop. [DNAinfo/Stephanie Lulay]

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