Google St. John’s Terminal
New York City
EXCELLENCE IN SECURITY and BEST PROJECT, INTERIOR IMPROVEMENT / RENT
Sent by: Tone of the structure
Lead Designer: Lead designer: Gensler
Structural Engineer: Gilsanz Murray Steficek LLP
MEP Engineer: GDR
Owner’s representative: Gardiner and Theobald
Designed as the new headquarters for Google’s Global Business Organization, the St. The 1.3 million square meter John’s aims to provide a communal, historic and environmentally friendly workplace for up to 3,000 employees, business partners and visitors. The updated structure includes the original three-story terminal topped with nine new levels. The updated parts of the building are combined with historic areas to create a workplace with flexible meeting and conference rooms, green spaces and common spaces.
Amenities include an entrance lobby, a grand lobby on the ground floor, fitness center, massage room, bike storage, medical room, cafeterias, micro kitchens, a teaching kitchen, lounges, meeting spaces, an auditorium, and ‘events.
A joint partnership of Structure Tone and Turner Construction was coordinated early in the project to address potential project challenges. About 26% of Google’s new space at the St. John’s is dedicated to services such as the 1,000-seat theater and auditorium.
The pre-construction team identified specific subcontractors who were qualified to undertake different scopes of work.
Photo courtesy of Structure Tone
Significant challenges included installing professionally designed supported scaffolding in high or hard-to-reach areas such as the theater’s acoustic ceiling. Crews also did 10 street crane pickups that involved installing mechanical units on the roof and three terrace locations.
The scope included an extensive installation of artworks, such as pieces that were mounted alongside an 11-story open staircase using system-designed scaffolding.
The project was completed under budget and on schedule in July 2023. With more than two years of work and 2 million man hours, it recorded a total recordable incident rate of 0.55, the highest down from Google’s global construction portfolio, according to the filing.
The team completed more than 8,000 daily pre-task plans; presented 1,300 toolbox talks; managed more than 3,200 security orientations; and conducted 2,400 third-party security audits. Crews also managed 20 partial and total building power outages, as well as 50 partial and complete sprinkler and fire suppression system outages.
