Google Gives Up Plans Of Opening Store in NYC

Last year Google bought a building in New York’s SoHo clearly planning on opening a store there. Now it seems that they canceled their plans and will try to lease the premises. According to sources Google spent around $6 million on renovating the building they purchased last year. They will probably try to lease it for a rent that will come close to $2.25 million a year. This will cut the tech company’s losses, but they still won’t have a standalone store they could call their own. The Greene Street building Google purchased last year would have housed the first real Google Store. Now it seems it won’t, after all.

According to reports he company made huge renovations to the building that was supposed to house the first Google store. They even removed a portion of the ground floor. This operation was made in order to create a “sunken area in the rear with soaring ceilings, glass skylights and large windows—exposing the brick walls, columns and steel beams of the landmarked building”, reports say. The outside of the 131 Greene Street location was also renovated by Google. After all this work, the Google store should have looked pretty impressive. Unfortunately, Google is leasing the building, so we won’t see Chromebook, Nexus devices and Android- run gadgets there any time soon.

This isn’t the first time Google backs out of a plan to open a standalone store. About two years ago, back in 2013, there were a lot of rumors concerning another ambitious plan of Google’s. Then it was thought that the tech giant will open an interactive space on extravagantly designed barges. These were supposed to be the locations where people could come and learn about new technology, mainly developed by Google. It sounded as a great plan, but it didn’t become reality after all. It just seems that this tech giant isn’t really good at following its own plans up when it comes to creating stores. It is a pity, because the Google Store could have been a  great place where Google could have showcased its hardware and devices that are running on its Android software. Maybe they have just found an even better location for their store. Who knows?