Since moving to the region in 2006, Google has grown its operations to over 100 people in Pittsburgh, a capacity that required it move to space in the newly constructed Bakery Square in East Liberty. One of the original tenants in the Collaborative Innovation Center on Carnegie Mellon’s campus, Google was looking for more than double its original lease and found 44,000 square feet in the Walnut Capital development, which has redone the old Nabisco bakery on Penn Avenue.

Said Andrew Moore, Google’s site director in Pittsburgh, “The city of Pittsburgh is a world center for computer science and so it makes perfect sense for Google to have the increased commitment represented by this move.  We are so excited about the feel, location and history of Bakery Square — just the right kind of place for this growing bunch of creative software engineers to be building some of the next generation of Google products.”

“We are seeing our vision of the Collaborative Innovation Center come to fruition — to serve as a landing zone where businesses can flourish and grow in the region.  One of the consequences of our success is that Google Pittsburgh continues to grow and is now moving to Bakery Square, where it can continue its expansion…” said CMU president Jared Cohon. “This is another example of how university-industry partnerships develop innovations that spur economic growth.”

Just before the holidays there was a furious one-week process completed to select a design and construction team for the project’s $4 million tenant improvement in the spring. Google interviewed a small group of contractors and architects, selecting A. Martini & Co. as contractor and Strada Architecture LLC to do the design.