It’s been less than two years since Facebook moved into its 150,000 square foot office space at 1601 South California Ave in Palo Alto, but the rapidly growing company is already itching for a new home. Now we’re hearing from multiple sources that Facebook has chosen the site for its new headquarters: the former Sun Microsystems/Oracle campus in Menlo Park CA, just off the Bayfront Expressway at 1601 Willow Road (map). The campus is around six miles from Facebook’s current home, and is bordered by Menlo Park and East Palo Alto.
The move doesn’t come as a surprise. Facebook had practically outgrown its current offices on S. California Ave before it even moved in, and it’s already subleased additional space at 1050 Page Mill Road, just down the street from its current location (employees can take shuttles between the two buildings, but it’s not very convenient). With over 2,000 employees and no signs of slowing, the company needs a lot more leg room.
Facebook says it isn’t a done deal quite yet (actually, they wouldn’t even confirm the location they’re looking at):
“We are exploring options for a long-term location to fit our growing business needs. We are in the due diligence phase on one potential site, but it would be premature to offer any specifics. We hope to have more to share in the near future once things have been finalized.”
Prior to moving to its current home on S. California Ave, Facebook occupied a handful of buildings that littered downtown Palo Alto near University Avenue. Based on Facebook’s comment it sounds like this new space could become their home for the foreseeable future. Back in 2003 Google had similar rapid growing pains and began subleasing SGI’s office space in Mountain View — it later purchased this land and expanded after its IPO.
Image via Dianiel Rosenthal’s Sun blog
Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 1 billion monthly active users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original...
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