London's biggest and most expensive office building, HSBC's global headquarters, is up for sale at what would be a record price for the British market, in a sign that the capital's -commercial property market is booming again, reported The Financial Times. The 44-storey, 102 thousand square meters building in Canary Wharf, east London, is being -marketed by the estate agents JLL and GM Real Estate for offers above US$ 1.85 billion, say sources with knowledge of the property. The HSBC tower became the most expensive building in London when it sold for US$ 1.83 billion at the height of the UK property boom in 2007. HSBC has a 13-year lease on the building and is 0committed to annual upward-only inflation-linked rent reviews, according to sources familiar with the tenancy arrangements. This would make it an attractive proposition for investors seeking a hedge against inflation. Last year, HSBC ruled out the possibility of relocating its headquarters to Hong Kong, opting to stay in the UK despite stricter European restrictions on bankers' bonuses. The building was designed by Foster + Partners and built in 2002, and HSBC raised almost US$ 1.85 billion by selling it to the Spanish property company Metrovacesa, only to take ownership back in-house in late 2008 when Metrovacesa hit financial difficulties. The South Korean national pension fund NPS then bought the building - whose address is 8 Canada Square - from HSBC the following year for nearly US$ 1.34 billion. NPS, which is being advised by JPMorgan, is seeking to sell in order to free up funds to take advantage of other opportunities across Europe. The London market has seen just two deals at higher prices than NPS's US$ 1.85 billion target; but both involved multiple-building estates rather than single assets. Late last year Blackstone sold its 50 percent stake in the City's Broadgate office -complex to Singapore -sovereign wealth fund GIC, and Armenian billionaire Dikran Izmirlian sold the More London estate to the Kuwait state property company St Martins. Both deals were reportedly priced at about US$ 2.85 billion.

Facebook's new headquarters for London and Dublin will receive the same treatment as the company's Silicon Valley campus with designs by architect Frank Gehry. The London office will take over three floors of a preexisting office space in Regents Park, giving Gehry the opportunity to redesign a renovation, while Facebook's Dublin office will be built from scratch in iconic Gehry style - both inside and out. The social media giant first linked up with Gehry last year, when they commissioned the architect to redesign their Menlo Park campus, an expansion that doubled the employee capacity. Now they have commissioned Gehry to help out with the two UK offices as the company continues to expand. Having outgrown its Covent Garden office, Facebook will have 86 thousand new offices at 10 Brock Street, an address familiar to social media as Twitter is also a tenant. The three floors will provide space for twice as many employees as the Covent Garden address, and may make some Twitter executives a little uncomfortable! Dublin employees will relocate to a new building designed by Gehry on Grand Canal Square, which will provide working space for thousand employees at an enormous 11 thousand square meters facility. While the project is still in the works and designs have not been started, it seems the Facebook/Frank Gehry partnership is going strong.

Plans for Apple's new ring-shaped Headquarters in Cupertino have been approved by the city planning commission, although the final decision won't be made until May 2014. The extravagant office building was first envisioned by Steve Jobs, who personally sought approval for it prior to his death in 2011. Designed by Foster + Partners, the US$ 5 billion building, which Apple calls "the best office building in the world," is slated for completion in 2016. The "spaceship" will cover 260 thousand square meters and host up to 14 thousand employees. Roughly 260 thousand square meters of office space, corporate fitness facilities, auditoriums and cafeterias that will handle lunch for 3 thousand employees will be enveloped in pricey floor-to-ceiling panes of concave glass from Germany. A 600-seat restaurant surrounded by over 6 thousand trees will boast floor-to-ceiling glass sliding doors. Steve Jobs first introduced the new campus project to the city council in mid-2011. Since the first design was unveiled, the project's estimated price has shot up from an initial US$ 3 billion to US$ 5 billion. Apple will begin tearing down 26 buildings on the existing site in June. These excavations expected to last six months will require a 24-hour convoy of trucks, according a former Apple manager.

Google Inc. agreed to rent a former shopping mall in Mountain View, California, in the largest Silicon Valley lease deal of the year, according to Bloomberg. The former mall is being renovated into an office complex, with completion scheduled for next year, real estate investment firm Rockwood Capital LLC said in a statement. Rockwood, which has offices in San Francisco and White Plains, New York, owns the former Mayfield Mall in a venture with San Francisco-based Four Corners Properties. Once the renovation is completed, the campus will have more than 46,5 thousand square meters of office space on 11.2 hectares. Rockwood didn't disclose the lease terms, and Caroline Luz, a spokeswoman for the company with Owen Blicksilver Public Relations, declined to comment beyond the statement. Katelin Jabbari, a spokeswoman for Mountain View-based Google, declined to comment on the lease. Mayfield Mall was the first air-conditioned, enclosed shopping mall in Northern California and was previously occupied by stores including J.C. Penney Co. The property, adjacent to the San Antonio Caltrain station, is in an area with shops, restaurants, housing and a planned hotel, Rockwood said. Google, owner of the world's most popular Internet search engine, agreed in July to expand its San Francisco office space at Morgan Stanley's Hills Plaza building in what would be that city's biggest lease transaction of 2013, a person with direct knowledge of the deal said at the time. Google joins Rackspace Hosting Inc. (RAX) in using a former shopping mall for office space. Rackspace, a provider of Web-based computing services, paid US$ 32.7 million for the abandoned Windsor Park Mall in San Antonio and converted it to offices.

Google Inc., owner of the world's largest search engine, won local government approval to build its new U.K. headquarters next to King's Cross train station in London, reported Bloomberg. The Camden borough council unanimously approved the 85,8 thousand square meters building at a meeting on September 5. The project on 2.4 acres (1 hectare) will have a swimming pool and a running track on the roof and space for as many as 5 thousand workers, according to a filing to the borough. Google expects to move into the building, which will be seven to 11 stories, in 2015 after it agreed in January to buy the land from King's Cross Central LP , the Mountain View, California-based company said at the time. In July of this year Google unveiled images of its newest campus, a 270 thousand square meters, 11-story behemoth that will be designed by award-winning architectural firm AHMM. Construction is due to start at the end of this year and completed in 2015. About 16 stores will also be built on the ground floor of the new building. Kings Cross Central will own the shops as part of the deal with Google, according to the filing.