Facebook moving next door to Menlo Park

Palo Alto headquarters no longer big enough to house burgeoning social networking company

The social network that just turned seven years old is ready to move out of its Silicon Valley digs.
 
Facebook announced Tuesday that, starting in June or July, it will be moving from its Palo Alto, Calif. campus to a new headquarters in Menlo Park, just a few miles away. Fittingly, the plans were unveiled at a press conference hosted at Menlo Park City Hall.
 
A change of location is necessary to help the company accommodate a quickly growing number of employees. Today, Facebook employs over 2,000 people, with more than 1,400 of those based here in the Bay Area. Its new home should be enough to house at least 3,600 workers, which gives the company plenty of room to grow.

The new building previously served another technology giant, Sun Microsystems, one of the most badly bruised companies in the wake of the dot-com bubble burst. (I don’t think Facebook is moving into this place, thank goodness.)

Though its new home is not as well-developed as the last, there’s little doubt that Facebook’s presence will change that. More importantly, the entire team is making the move together, which the company’s executives thought crucial to maintaining the company’s culture.

“The most important thing about the Facebook culture, at least to me, is the way the company tries to bring together really energetic, bright, motivated people,” said Facebook CFO David Ebersman. “We have a very open work environment, so there are no offices. Everybody sits at desks. There are no cubicles or walls–well, there are walls to hold the place up. But as much as possible the spaces are open.”

Just a month ago, reports said the Bay Area’s other social networking darling, Twitter, was considering moving a little south from its San Francisco home to Brisbane, also to make room for its rapidly expanding worker base.