Google plans $17-million expansion in Michigan, to add jobs in Detroit and Ann Arbor

Tech giant Google announced Monday that it will expand its Detroit and Ann Arbor offices and add new sales and technical support jobs.

The expansions will involve new hires across Google's two Michigan locations: its Detroit office next to Little Caesars Arena and its primary Michigan office on the north side of Ann Arbor.

The company declined to specify how many new jobs are coming, but said there will be a "significant" addition. Google currently employs about 600 people in Michigan, mostly in advertising sales and technical support for services such as Google's cloud-computing platform.

Google plans to spend $17 million on the expansion work and is not seeking any development subsidies. The company is making similar investments in 13 other states.

The company plans to lease an additional floor at its Detroit location and lease an additional building in Ann Arbor near its existing office at 2300 Traverwood Drive. The expansions will grow Google's footprint in Michigan to 260,000 square feet from about 170,000 square feet, the company said.

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The Detroit expansion is expected to finish in 2020 and the Ann Arbor expansion in early 2021.

In April, Google’s self-driving car project Waymo announced plans to open a Detroit facility for the final assembly of its self-driving vehicles. That facility would employ at least 100, with the potential for up to 400 people. 

Waymo will lease and repurpose an existing site — expected to open later this year — on the American Axle and Manufacturing campus on Holbrooke where American Axle has its world headquarters.

Google's latest expansion announcement Monday coincided with a morning visit to Taylor by Google Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat. Porat, who spent the night at a downtown Detroit hotel and visited the Taylor Community Library to showcase the popular "Grow with Google" initiative that offers free workforce training in digital skills.

“We’ve been in this area for over 13 years now," Porat said of Google's presence in Michigan. "We’re really proud of the team, and we see this as just a great opportunity to build on what is working really well.”

"As a company, Google is growing at a faster rate outside the San Francisco Bay Area than inside the Bay Area," she said.

ContactJC Reindl: 313-222-6631 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jcreindl. Read more on business and sign up for our business newsletter.