If you go What: Boulder Planning Board When: 5 p.m. today Where: Boulder City Council Chambers, 1777 Broadway, Boulder More info: bouldercolorado.gov Proposal: Site review hearing for Pearl Place, a two-phased redevelopment consisting of 330,000 square feet of Class A office space in three, four-story buildings and below-grade parking. The project is proposed for the properties at 2095, 2111, 2121 30th St., as well as 2920 and 2930 Pearl St.

Google has big plans for Boulder.

Google hopes to base its Boulder campus at the proposed Pearl Place development, which at build-out could house as many as 1,500 employees in 330,000 square feet of space, making the local site one of the tech giant’s largest in the United States.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based Google currently has more than 300 employees scattered between three buildings in central Boulder and soon plans to expand into a fourth building, said Scott Green, Google’s Boulder site director. Including the fourth space, Google’s near-term presence would span about 100,000 square feet.

“We wanted the ability to grow into the future,” he said.

Pearl Place would provide that, he said.

The redevelopment proposed for five existing properties on the southwest corner of 30th and Pearl streets consists of 330,000 square feet of Class A office space in three, four-story buildings. The site review proposal for Pearl Place, a 4.3-acre site that would be bordered by Chase Bank, Two Nine North and Target, goes before the Boulder Planning Board this evening.

“We’re really excited to continue to be in Boulder; Boulder is where we want to be,” Green said. ” … This is contingent upon timely approval. That’s still out there. We need to get through the final city processes.”

Pearl Place, if approved as proposed, would be built in two phases by developer Pearl Place Associates LLC, which includes Forum Real Estate and Brickstone Partners. Construction on the first phase — two, 110,000-square-foot buildings — could begin by the third quarter of next year, with the second phase coming at a “later date,” Google officials said.

If all goes according to Google’s plan, the company would move its local workforce into the site during the first quarter of 2017. Green said he could not disclosed the planned rate of growth for Google’s local workforce.

The initial investment in the first phase is expected to surpass $100 million, said Greg Stackhouse, Google’s real estate project executive.

Google is not seeking local or state incentives for the project, Green said.

Citing legal agreements, Dan Otis, of Brickstone Partners, a co-developer of the project, said he could neither confirm nor deny the identity of Pearl Place’s tenants, but said that Google was the impetus for the assemblage of the five properties off 30th and Pearl streets. Otis valued the project at $150 million.

The Colorado Real Estate Journal in August reported that Otis said Google signed a letter of intent for the site.

“It’s an exciting project for Boulder,” he said. “It’s taken me many years to put it together. My hope is it all falls into place the way it was envisioned.”

Otis declined to embellish on specifics of the project, noting that the proposal still needs to get the city’s blessing.

“We’re very aware that they have an active role,” he said.

Site plans submitted to the city indicate elements such as a public, multi-use path that intersects the campus; a small dog park and a B-cycle station.

For the office space, Google officials envision amenities such as bike repair stations, cafeteria, fitness center, game rooms, an indoor courtyard, Tech Talk space for public forums and an indoor courtyard that can be used for both private and public events. The buildings would be built to achieve minimum LEED-Gold design standards and have other environmentally friendly features such as photovoltaic systems and a “complete thermal and moisture envelope,” officials said.

Google will report its 2014 earnings early next year, but finished the third quarter with a net income of $2.81 billion on revenue of $16.52 billion. In the same period last year, Google’s income was $2.97 billion and revenue was $13.75 billion.

The confirmation of the proposed Boulder site expansion comes as part of a larger real estate binge by Google, which has snapped up millions of square feet of space in the Bay Area alone, in addition to bulking up existing sites in areas such as Cambridge, Mass.

“We’re growing in every location around the globe,” Stackhouse said.

John Tayer, president and chief executive officer of the Boulder Chamber, welcomes the growth in Boulder.

“For me, it’s an affirmation of many of the qualities and characteristics that we speak about when we talk about what a wonderful community this is for business,” Tayer said. “It’s both a great place for talent, which is one of the great community assets that we bring to the table. And, again, it’s just positioning Boulder as a center for the high-tech industry.”

Google’s potential expansion would be an affirmation for the city whose locally bred startups attracted the likes of Google, Microsoft and Twitter, he said. The tech behemoths’ Boulder offices were the result of acquisitions: Google acquired @Last Software, a developer of the 3-D modeling software program SketchUp, in 2006; Microsoft bought remote-sensing firm Vexcel Corp. also in 2006; and earlier this year, Twitter Inc. snapped up social data provider Gnip Inc. for $134 million.

In its eight years here, Google expanded its local presence, folded SketchUp into its Maps offering and the eventually sold the SketchUp group to Trimble in 2012.

The focus of Google’s Boulder site now consists of Google Drive, Google Now, Geo and Payments, Green said.

Google, however, could land in a project that stirred some concern recently among local merchants and a member of the City Council that some small businesses were being priced out of Boulder as large-scale developments replace aging strip centers.

As a result of the multi-building acquisition by Forum Real Estate, more than a dozen businesses were displaced and several have moved to new locations. Some longtime local businesses such as Cafe Food have closed, while others including Ras Kassa’s Ethiopian restaurant have embarked on searches for new locations.

Tayer said his organization is conducting advocacy work to meet the needs of a variety of businesses.

“(The work) is to identify opportunities for redevelopment and infill that accommodate the full spectrum of business activity but also provides a diversity of housing opportunities to make sure we could accommodate our workforce needs,” he said. “We want to continue to have that dialogue with the community to make sure we’re addressing the full range of business needs and opportunities as well as continuing to keep Boulder a wonderful place to live.”

Liz Hanson, the city’s economic vitality coordinator, said a Google expansion would be a major boon to the local economy and could help address perceived shortages in the local software and technology talent pool.

“It’s going to make Boulder even more of a hub and we know that allows Boulder to draw people to move here who wouldn’t otherwise move here,” she said.

Alicia Wallace: 303-473-1332, wallacea@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/dc_alicia