Facebook signs 10 year lease for new NYC office

The 100,000 square foot space will be almost double the size of its current office

(Updated to reflect comment from Facebook, Frank Gehry and Michael Bloomberg)

After announcing that it would be building both a new campus in Menlo Park, as well as a new data center in Iowa, Facebook is making an upgrade to its east coast commidations as well. 

'Facebook will be moving to a new New York office, the social network revealed Monday in a blog post. It is approximately 100,000 square feet, almost double the size of its current office, and takes up two floors of an existing building.

"We'll have plenty of video conferencing equipment to make meeting with our colleagues in other offices really quick and easy. We'll have room to build out a full service kitchen and serve great food throughout the day. And, of course, we'll still have all the other Facebook benefits like free laundry, gym memberships and lots of paid vacation," Facebook wrote.

The new office will be located at 770 Broadway, just above Astor Place and five blocks down from Union Square, Facebook has confirmed to VatorNews.

Facebook's current office is located at 335 Madison Avenue, a block over from Grand Central Station.

In addition, the new space will be designed by Frank Gehry, who is, at the moment, working on Facebook's expansion of its headquarters in Menlo Park. Gehry's other buildings include the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California.

"We were delighted when he agreed to help us build out our new space in New York. It will share many of the features of our headquarters, but will be distinctly Big Apple in design and speak to the unique experience of working in a place like Manhattan," said Facebook.

"We've been extraordinarily pleased with his ability to delivery an incredible quality of design at a remarkably efficient price.  In fact, just as he did with our West Campus expansion, Frank has taken our budget needs into account with this building to ensure that it is both economical and efficient.  Given his great talent, we were delighted when he agreed to help us build out our new space in New York.  While we are still in the very early stages of the design process and do not have much detail to share here yet, we expect the space to be very similar to our West Campus plan.  This will include open floor plans, natural lighting, and an emphasis on space for collaboration," Gehry said in a statement.

The new office is set to open in early 2014, which would be around the two year anniversary of Facebook first coming to New York.

“Facebook’s investment in New York City is another vote on confidence in our bright future and booming tech scene,” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement. “Talented people recognize New York City as a great place to live, and by expanding here, Facebook will able to continue to attract the kinds of creative and dynamic employees that have made it such a great company.”

Facebook's other projects

In addition to the New York office, Facebook is also building a second campus.

The new building, which will be standing on 22-acres of land, will be at 312 and 313 Constitution Drive, directly across the street from Facebook’s current headquarters. It will reportedly be 433,555-square-foot long, and will be mostly 45 feet high, though in some areas it will be as tall as 73 feet due to a surface-level parking lot. Since the two campuses will be right across from each other, Facebook will also be building a tunnel beneath Bayfront Expressway, which runs between the  two campuses, in order to connect them.

Facebook is also currently building a 476,000-square foot data center in Iowa, which will be built on a 194 acre site. The site is big enough that it has the possibility of being able to accommodate as many as two more data center buildings, which Facebook could potentially choose to build in the future. This will be Facebook's fourth data center; it joins Facebook's existing centers in Prineville, Oregon; Forest City, North Carolina; and Luleå, Sweden

Facebook plans to break ground this summer and expects to begin serving user traffic by next year.

(Image source: https://betabeat.com)