Google Likely Building a Floating Glass Store in the SF Bay

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Google's got a top-secret project in the works in San Francisco. Our sister site reports that the search giant is constructing a floating apparatus in the city's bay. At first, rumor had it that the structure was a data center, but new intelligence suggests that Google is actually building a floating store for its Glass product.

Says CBS, "the barge, with a four-story stack of shipping containers, is out in the open for all to see. But the project's purpose has been kept under wraps, and virtually no one wants to talk about it for the record, from the harbor office at Clipper Cove to the Treasure Island Development Authority to the U.S. Coast Guard." Via anonymous sources, the news outlet has confirmed that Google is indeed at work on its own version of a "giant" Apple store—and to one-up Apple, they're doing it on water. Supposedly, the final product would be tow-able and able to be anchored to land wherever Google pleased to put it.

Construction, which was underway for months, was halted recently because—again, based on anonymous testimony—Google lacks some of the permits that are needed for the job.

· Google Takes Mobile Retail to Sea With a Floating Glass Store [Racked SF]
· Massive Barge On San Francisco Bay Likely Secret Google Facility [CBS]
· Here's the Cute Version of Google Glass [Racked]