Housing In The Works Near Facebook's New Menlo Park Headquarters
MENLO PARK (KCBS) - Menlo Park has been reviewing bids for a major housing development across from the new Facebook headquarters, a city official said.
Greg Frederick, housing manager for Menlo Park, said 5 developers are competing for the opportunity to build hundreds of residences on a 7-acre site within walking distance of the Facebook campus.
KCBS' Mike Colgan Reports:
The capacity of the office park will be expanded so that it eventually accommodates 9,400 workers. Facebook said most of its Palo Alto staff would complete the transition to Menlo Park by Christmas.
"It's quite a large influx of employees. The site was originally entitled for about 3,000 employees," Frederick said.
Because of the company's culture, Frederick said building housing on the other side of the Bayshore Freeway should encourage some Facebook employees who work in Menlo Park to live there too.
"Facebook is very conscious of reducing the number of cars that come to the campus," he said, noting the company's emphasis on the use of alternative transportation to get to work.
Despite plans to expand the office park once occupied by Sun Microsystems, Facebook said a few employees based in the Palo Alto offices would stay there for part of 2012.
Frederick said Menlo Park would announce the winner of the bid in January. The earliest the project would break ground, he said, would be 2013.
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