Google, Lendlease End Plans for Billion-Dollar Development in Bay Area

Google and Australian developer, Lendlease, mutually decided to cancel their San Francisco Bay Project which is a $15 billion worth of homes, offices, and retail spaces in Silicon Valley.

Google, Lendlease Shut Down Partnership

The partnership project was supposed to be four master-planned districts in the cities of San Jose, Sunnyvale, and Mountainview. In a released statement, Lendlease explained that the existing agreement between the companies is "no longer mutually beneficial given current market conditions."

While the partnership is gone for good, Google shared with CNN that the company will continue to invest in infrastructure and advance mixed-use entitlements. Despite the end of the agreement, Google shared appreciation for Lendlease and the team that has worked to get them where they are.

"As we've shared before, we've been optimizing our real estate investments in the Bay Area, and part of that work is looking at a variety of options to move our development projects forward and deliver on our housing commitment," Google senior director of development Alexa Arena stated.

Google and its Billion-Dollar Investments

Since Google is a large tech company, it is only natural for it to diversify and invest in other things. For instance, the company pledged $1 billion to help develop more affordable housing with the increasing prices in the market. Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote back in 2019 that the company's goal is to guide communities in the long term by providing access to opportunity regardless of inclination to technology.

The partnership with Lendlease was born a month after the promise. The redevelopment plan was supposed to be a 10 to 15-year project valued at $15 billion. The construction was supposed to start in Lendlease's 2026 fiscal year.

Although the project has made steady progress, both parties met some challenges which eventually led to the dissolution of the partnership. The companies, which have both worked together for four years, ended after Google reviewed its real estate investments. Regardless, Lendlease will receive a payment in consideration for the value it contributed through the entitlement and master planning process.