AOL’s managed to tempt a number of employees away from Google over the past couple of years, with the list including names like Tim Armstrong, Caroline Campbell, Tim Castelli, Erin Clift, David Eun, Kristin Kovner, Jeff Levick, Jeff Reynar, and Maureen Sullivan.  Now, it looks like AOL will – with Google’s approval – take some office space, too.

Michael Arrington reported this morning, "Google apparently has a lot of empty office space in Silicon Valley laying around under long term leases.  One three story building – all 225,000 square feet of it – was just subleased by Google to AOL."

That’s unusual enough; it’s not every day one major tech company makes room for another.  The story gets even more interesting, though, as AOL intends to take just one floor of the building for itself and will let small startups use the rest of the space.

Brad Garlinghouse, President of Consumer Applications at AOL and head of its Silicon Valley operations, explained the reasoning behind this move by telling Arrington, "[W]e’re all about fostering a culture around creativity and new ideas which is why we plan to sublease our space to entrepreneurs and start-ups in the valley."

This could put AOL in a good position to acquire promising young companies, or at least partner with them.  Which is quite important, given the view most people have about its lack of innovation.

Unfortunately, Google and AOL haven’t said much about move-in dates or compensation just yet.