Facebook s growth over its decade-plus in Silicon Valley: Cushman & Wakefield
For Facebook, the numbers are impressive, no matter how one slices them. Facebook is now nearly 1,200 times bigger, measured by office space, than its humble start in the South Bay, according to a new report from Sethena Leiker, a senior analyst with Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial realty firm.
Facebook now occupies 3.5 million square feet in Menlo Park, which is about 1,167 times as large as its original Silicon Valley office of about 3,000 square feet. Cushman & Wakefield tracked the social network firm s dazzling growth over the decade-plus of the company s existence in its home base of Silicon Valley.
The social network s growth bloomed to about 500,000 square in Palo Alto by 2010, but it was the next year that saw a dramatic jump in the Facebook expansion in Silicon Valley — and the company s first foray into Menlo Park, the city that eventually would become its headquarters.
In 2011, Facebook purchased the old Sun Microsystems-Oracle campus in Menlo Park, totaling 1 million square feet. Facebook paid $81 million for the site, according to Cushman & Wakefield.
The very next day, according to the Cushman & Wakefield brokerage, Facebook turned around and sold the property to RREEF, a big realty investment firm that s now known as Deutsche Bank, in a deal worth $200 million. In 24 hours, the property s value jumped 147 percent. Thumbs up for property appreciation in Menlo Park. That site would become the company s headquarters.
Then came a brief pause in realty activity amid the company s IPO of $16 billion in February 2012. During that hiatus, Facebook was busy with a migration of its employees into the Menlo Park home base as well as construction of a 435,000-square-foot West Campus for the tech giant.
To fulfill future growth, the social media company completed two significant land grabs in the last six months, Leiker wrote in her report.
Starting last fall, Facebook resumed its shopping spree in Menlo Park. In September, Facebook paid about $102 million for the 1-million-square-foot TE Connectivity campus on 59 acres. Earlier this month, Facebook paid $400 million for the 56-acre Menlo Science & Technology Park, totaling 1.1 million square feet.
The employment base of Facebook has expanded 45 percent over the past year, according to an analysis by Hoover s.
Facebook now controls 3.5 million square feet and 200 acres of land in one of the most prestigious cities in the United States, Leiker stated.
