Dive Brief:
- According to Menlo Park, CA, city council documents, Facebook is offering up a variety of benefits, including affordable housing, scholarships and city fees and taxes, in order to obtain 20-year development rights and a waiver of building height limitations for its corporate campus there, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported.
- Facebook would pay for a variety of city services including: $430,000 in rent subsidies for "community-serving professions," like teachers and police officers, for five years; a $6.3 million affordable housing fee that will directly fund development; a $300,000 annual payment (adjusted for inflation) to Menlo Park for 20 years; guaranteed hotel taxes of $1.25 million annually; various infrastructure and road improvements; $60,000 each year toward the maintenance of a community pool and $100,000 per year in scholarship money for at least 10 years.
- Facebook wants to expand its Menlo Park campus – with two buildings totaling 960,000 square feet plus a 200-room hotel – but received pushback from the some city officials and community members about the stress that an anticipated 6,550 jobs would put on local transportation, housing and community resources.
Dive Insight:
According to The Mercury News, affordable housing fees normally are funneled directly into the city's affordable housing coffers, now totaling $10 million, but Facebook's $6.3 million will be part of a Facebook-Midpen Housing initiative because, according to Midpen officials, the city has been slow to fund projects.
Other benefits Facebook will provide:
- A 1,500-unit development with 15% of them below market
- A regional housing study and the establishment of a $1.5 million "Housing innovation Fund"
- Guaranteed minimum assessed values for the two new buildings and hotel, providing a stable base for city property taxes
- A rail corridor study
Architect Frank Gehry will design the new buildings on Facebook's campus, as he did for their new offices in Seattle. The social media giant's offices there will be able to fit 2,000 employees, even though it currently has only 1,000 in Seattle. Gehry is famous for creating the bare bones, industrial Facebook office look featuring concrete floors, exposed ductwork and unfinished plywood walls.
