Google expands its Miami office footprint, following co-founders’ home purchases

Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., is more than quadrupling its office footprint in Miami.

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The move comes after Google’s billionaire co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, bought millions of dollars in Miami-Dade real estate late last year and early this year.

The tech giant signed a lease expanding its office footprint in a tower at 1450 Brickell Ave. from about 10,000 square feet to about 45,000 square feet. The news was first reported by Bloomberg and later confirmed to the Miami Herald by a person with knowledge of the transaction.

Google, which is headquartered in Mountain View, California, has had an office in Miami since 2017.

Andrew Trench, a Miami-based office broker with Cushman & Wakefield, said big-name companies moving to the area “validate Miami as a place to do business.” Trench was not involved in the Google lease, but he said he thinks it’s “fantastic for the whole market.” He said he believes that Miami’s “billionaire wave” will lead to a “talent wave.”

In recent years, billionaires have been scooping up homes in South Florida. And some, like Citadel CEO Ken Griffin and Palantir CEO Alex Karp, have moved their companies’ headquarters to Miami. But its unclear how much business other billionaires are bringing to the region.

While Alphabet’s recent office expansion has led to speculation that the company will also expand its Miami-based workforce, a Google spokesperson declined to say whether Google plans to bring more employees to Miami. She also declined to say how many employees currently work in the company’s Miami office.

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Co-founders Page and Brin have both spent millions on South Florida real estate in recent months. Page reportedly spent about $188 million assembling a waterfront estate in Coconut Grove, and Brin reportedly purchased a home on Allison Island in Miami Beach for $51 million.

Comments made by Griffin at a conference earlier this year indicated Page was sending his children to school in South Florida, which could suggest that Miami is the tech billionaire’s primary residence. Griffin said he sends his children to the same school as Page, though it’s unclear which school that is. Page is the second-richest person in the world and is worth an estimated $283.8 billion.

The New York Times has reported that Brin’s primarily residence is a home on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe, which also borders California. Brin, the world’s third-richest person, is worth an estimated $261.8 billion.

Page and Brin bought their Miami-Dade homes amid speculation about the ultra-wealthy leaving California because of a proposed billionaire wealth tax. Both men had been longtime residents of California, where they founded Google in 1998.

The proposed billionaire tax, which California voters will decide on in a referendum this fall, would apply a one-time wealth tax of 5% to all California residents worth $1 billion or more. The tax would retroactively apply to any billionaire who was living in the state on Jan. 1, 2026.

Alphabet’s Miami expansion also comes as the company cashes in on Silicon Valley’s artificial intelligence boom. But although the company has seen its valuation swell to over $4 trillion, Google has also been quietly laying off some of its employees, Business Insider reported in June. Last week, Google employees delivered a petition with more than 4,500 signatures demanding layoff protections.

Read more Google expands its Miami office footprint, following co-founders’ home purchases