In this day and age, more and more people are starting to live their lives through social media sites – whether it’s posting photographs, or making friends a few towns over. In fact, billions of people across the globe spend their lives glued to their Facebook homepage. Now internet giant Facebook (NASDAQ:$FB) wants to take a stab at creating a community in the real world. What would this look like? Well the company has plans to build housing, retail stores, a hotel, and much more at its corporate headquarters – in short, Facebook is now looking to build its own little town.
On July 6, Facebook revealed its plans for the new construction project at its Menlo Park, California corporate campus. The project is part of Facebook’s plans to expand its home base. Facebook’s 56-acre site, which the company bought for about $400 million back in 2015, is located directly across the street from Facebook’s headquarters. The site will offer 1.6 million square feet of housing, or 1,500 units.
Facebook unveiled the plans in a blog post which described the future development as a “mixed-use village”. Elaborating further, Facebook said that the village will provide residents, many of which will be employees of the company, with housing, transportation services, and other conveniences. Additionally, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal, the new development will also include a hotel.
“We plan to build 125,000 square feet of new retail space, including a grocery store, pharmacy and additional community-facing retail,” Facebook said.
However, don’t get too excited. The town will take close to a decade to build, according to a person close to the plans. As reported by a blog post on Facebook’s website, the first phase of the project, which will include the housing and grocery store, will be finished in the first half of 2021, while the following phases will be completed every two years.
Even though the majority of the housing will be given to Facebook employees, Facebook is planning to open the housing to the community. The housing will be a combination of market rate and affordable housing units, with 225 units (15%) priced below market rate.
In the blog post, Facebook wrote: “Part of our vision is to create a neighborhood center that provides long-needed community services.” The post also talked about how it is beneficial to have employees live in close proximity to campus as it would help to reduce the amount of traffic in the area.
Keep in mind that Facebook has presented the plans to the City of Menlo Park, but they have not yet approved it. Facebook has forecasted that the approval process will take roughly two years.
Featured Image: twitter
