Argo AI is increasing its presence in the Strip District, Pittsburgh.
The self-driving car startup is finding more space in the Riverfront West building in the 3 Crossings development in the Strip.
Argo AI moved its headquarters to the five-story building in 2018. It presently occupies floors four and five, along with part of the first floor.
The extra space will be on the third floor, which the company will be sharing with Oxford Development, the developer behind 3 Crossings. Oxford, which also has headquarters in the 130,500-square-foot building, has about 20,000 square feet of space located on the third floor.
Argo spokesman Alan Hall confirmed the company has leased part of the third floor. “We won’t get into detail beyond that it’s office space,” Hall said.
The company made a big splash in 2017 when it declared it was shifting to 3 Crossings from the Crane Building, where it had been operating out of one floor.
At 3 Crossings, Argo — which is working with the Ford Motor — joined Apple, the Burns White law firm, and Rycon Construction.
Even with the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, the startup may have reason to expand.
Earlier this month, it finalized a deal with Volkswagen on a $2.6 billion investment.
As part of the deal first declared last July, Argo will absorb Volkswagen’s Autonomous Intelligent Driving Team. That gave the company an engineering center situated in Munich, Germany, and brought its total headcount to over 1,000 workers.
The AID team — a subsidiary of Audi, which is part of Volkswagen Group — was developing technology to establish a universal self-driving system in urban environments.
Argo, founded in 2016, had secured a $1 billion investment from Ford as well.
The expansion lends more credence to the thought the corridor running from the Strip into Lawrenceville has become a robotics row with companies like Argo, Uber, Honeywell, Apple, Facebook, and other robotics and high-tech ventures dotting the landscape.
Aurora Innovation, an autonomous vehicle company now located in Lawrenceville, is also believed to be situated soon in the 1600 Smallman Street office project being developed by Chicago-based McCaffery Interests.
The $210 million 3 Crossings project consists of four office buildings, a 300-unit apartment complex and a 590-space parking garage.
Oxford has started their work on a second phase that could include up to six new office buildings, two apartment buildings, and a parking garage with up to 800 spaces in the booming Strip.
