As local elected officials continue to raise questions about Amazon's proposed, heavily-subsidized new campus in Long Island City, tech competitor Google announced it would continue to expand its New York City footprint by 1.7 million square feet, with lease agreements in Hudson Square.

Google, which already owns 111 Eighth Avenue and bought the Chelsea Market building for $2.4 billion earlier this year, said that it hoped to occupy the two spaces on Hudson Street by 2020 and the redeveloped St. John's Terminal at 550 Washington Street by 2022. The news follows rumors that Google was looking to find space for up to 12,000 more employees in New York.

Ruth Porat, SVP and CFO of Google and its holding company Alphabet wrote a blog post explaining the deal:

Today we’re taking the next step in our commitment to our New York City presence by investing over $1 billion in capital improvements to establish a new campus, Google Hudson Square. The over 1.7 million square-foot campus is a result of lease agreements at 315 and 345 Hudson Street and a signed letter of intent at 550 Washington Street. When we came to New York City almost two decades ago, it was our first office outside of California. It’s now home to more than 7,000 employees, speaking 50 languages, working on a broad range of teams including Search, Ads, Maps, YouTube, Cloud, Technical Infrastructure, Sales, Partnerships and Research. New York City continues to be a great source of diverse, world-class talent—that’s what brought Google to the city in 2000 and that’s what keeps us here. Earlier this year, we announced the $2.4 billion purchase of the Manhattan Chelsea Market and shared plans to lease additional space at Pier 57. We hope to start moving into the two Hudson Street buildings by 2020, followed by 550 Washington Street in 2022 once the building is complete. Google Hudson Square will be the primary location for our New York-based Global Business Organization.

Porat's blog post also detailed the company's partnerships with the community, though a recent NY Times article quoted a handful of community members who are not enamored by the tech giant; for instance, since Google offers free food to its employees, Bowery Kitchen Supplies co-owner believes his business's sandwich counter "has lost thousands of dollars a month in sales."

The neighborhood, west of Soho, will also be welcoming Disney, which will be demolishing all the buildings on an entire block (bounded by Spring, Vandam, Hudson and Varick Streets) for a new 1 million square foot complex. City Winery, which occupies a two-story building at the corner of Vandam and Varick, plans to move out by January 1, 2020.