On Friday, Facebook revealed its plans to build a new 59-acre campus across the street from its current headquarters in Menlo Park, California.
The description of the new office, dubbed "Willow Campus," sounds like a nearly complete town: It'll have apartments, local transportation, multiple parks, office space, a grocery store, and a pharmacy.
In addition to 1.75 million square feet of office space, there will be 1.6 million square feet of residential space and 125,000 square feet of retail and mixed-use space. Maybe you'll never leave if you work there? Maybe your manager will be your landlord?
Facebook said there will be 1,500 units of housing on the campus, 225 of which will be offered at below market rates, something the Bay Area desperately needs. The company said the residential housing will be for "local workers" as well as Facebook employees.
In its blog post, Facebook said its office park would bring "long-needed community services" to its home city. It also decried local government's "failure to invest in transportation infrastructure." The company emphasized its own investment in local highway infrastructure and an affordable housing fund as efforts to mitigate the adverse effects of its growing business.
Multiple buildings comprise Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park. The two largest are Sun Microsystems' former offices — one million square feet — and MPK 20 — 430,000 square feet of office space designed by famed architect Frank Gehry. The company moved into the Sun buildings in 2011 and opened MPK 20 in 2015. There's currently no housing at either location, according to a Facebook spokesperson.
The social network is positioning the plans as a big boon for its neighbors.
It published a video "Facebook and the Community" in the announcement and titled its blog post "Investing in Menlo Park and the Community."
Here are a few views of the new Facebook campus's planned layout:
Here's where the train and bus station will be.
There will be seven parks in total, according to Facebook:
Facebook said it hopes to finish the retail, housing, and office space by 2021. And that's just Phase 1 of the development.
The company said the first step toward the campus becoming a reality will be submitting its plans to the city of Menlo Park this month. In its blog post about the new plans, Facebook said it expects the review process to take about two years.
