City hopes to get lucky with Google City hopes to get lucky with Google (May 07, 2004)

Notoriety gained from IPO plan expected to be good for business

By Jon Wiener

Apple Computer's Palo Alto garage. Ford Motor's River Rouge plant. These legendary locales are more than historical landmarks -- they symbolize the communities where they were born. Time will tell if Google's sprawling office complex next to a landfill in north Mountain View ever evokes the same romantic sense of inspiration.

The popular search engine's announcement last Thursday that it had registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and intends to file an initial public offering focused the world's attention on Mountain View.

Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are not the only ones who have pinned their hopes on a successful IPO. Employees and investors alike stand to become much richer for their trouble, and the local high-tech sector is salivating over the possibility of one more bubble.

But Mountain View stands to gain more from all the hoopla than just a few more young, rich techies. There is, after all, no small amount of cachet that comes from being the hometown of Google.

"We definitely get to bask in the limelight for a little while," said Council member Mike Kasperzak. "This is international news; it puts Mountain View in the headlines on a daily basis. You just can't get publicity like this."

Kasperzak said he hopes the increased attention will draw more business and investment to Mountain View.

While Google does not pay local sales taxes on the core of its business, online advertising, city officials are optimistic about a "spillover effect" from the IPO.

The company already has plans to add 500,000 square feet of office space on Amphitheatre Parkway, which will contribute to lowering the vacancy rate.

"Hopefully, they'll expand and add more jobs to the community," said Ellis Berns, Mountain View's economic development manager.

Kasperzak speculated that the Googlians' newfound wealth -- analysts expect the company to raise hundreds of millions of dollars through its IPO -- might trickle down into the community, if Google employees fill the local eateries that lost customers when PayPal closed its downtown office earlier this year.

Then again, "their free cafe is very good; I don't know why they would ever go anywhere else," Kasperzak added.

For their part, Google officials are keeping mum on the ramifications of going public. Just about the only thing a spokesperson was able to confirm was that Google headquarters are, in fact, in Mountain View.

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