111 Eighth Avenue, also known as the Google Building and formerly known as Union Inland Terminal #1 and the Port Authority Building, is an Art Deco multi-use building in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Fifteen stories tall and occupying an entire city block, it has 2.9Â million square feet (270,000Â m) of floor space, more than the Empire State Building.
The Port of New York Authority began acquiring the land on the building's site in 1930, against the protests of local residents. It was completed in 1932 and served as an inland terminal for the Hudson River piers and as a warehousing and industrial facility. Occupancy fell to 50Â percent in the 1970s due to the decline of industrial activity in Manhattan, and the Port Authority itself moved to the World Trade Center in 1973. In the 1990s the building began to attract tenants in the technology and telecommunications sectors. In 2010, the building was purchased for $1.8 billion by Google, who became its largest tenant; Google's presence helped attract other technology companies to Chelsea and contributed to the neighborhood's ongoing gentrification. Aside from Google, the building is also home to a cancer treatment center and a black box theater.