Microsoft plans campus face-lift with new 4-acre green roof, office space expansion

Dive Brief:

The 515,000-square-foot Microsoft office facility in Mountain View, CA, is in for a green face-lift, with plans for a major modernization project featuring 164,000 square feet — or 3.7 acres — of green roof space. Microsoft is also planning to buy the facility, which it has leased for 15 years, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported.
Microsoft’s renovation project, intended to create a more modern work environment, includes the conversion of six acres of surface parking to green space, a new parking garage possibly topped by a soccer field, demolition and replacement of two existing buildings, and a network of interior courtyards yielding usable outdoor space. The expanded and renovated facility, designed to meet LEED Platinum energy efficiency standards, would be able to accommodate an additional 500 workers.
Microsoft said that once the project is approved by the city, work will begin in early 2017 and take three years to complete, with Skanska as the general contractor.

Dive Insight:

Industry analysts have said the revamp of the office space could be an attempt on the part of Microsoft’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, to send a message of "rejuvenation" after a rough patch when the company laid off workers at the Mountain View campus as recently as September 2014, the Business Journal reported.

The campus project is a necessary move for Microsoft to reestablish a presence in the area, as well as compete for talent with other nearby tech giants like Google, Apple and Facebook, the Business Journal noted.

Microsoft neighbor Google, according to BuildZoom, spent more than $500 million on construction and remodeling of its offices and local businesses — approximately 75 properties in all — between 2004 and 2014, twice as much as all of the homeowners in Mountain View put together.

Six miles away, Apple is building its new, $5 billion futuristic headquarters campus in Cupertino, CA. Dubbed the "spaceship," Apple said the building is as carefully engineered as the iPhone. Construction hit a brief snag last year, though, when contractors Skanska — who is now slated to renovate Microsoft’s building — and DPR Construction left the project midway through due to undisclosed reasons.