Facebook: REI building | office space | remote work | Geekwire

 

Facebook buys REI’s new HQ for $367M, expanding Seattle-area footprint beyond 3M square feet

Facebook is yet again expanding in the Seattle region, its largest engineering hub outside of Silicon Valley.

The social media giant paid $367.6 million to purchase a brand new 6-acre, 400,000 square-foot complex from REI at the new Spring District development in Bellevue, Wash., just east of Seattle.

The expansion comes despite Facebook’s embrace of remote work amid the pandemic. It’s also the latest example of a tech company expanding outside of Seattle’s urban core. Facebook says it will maintain its current offices in Seattle.

REI was set to move from its Kent, Wash., HQ into the property this summer, with plans for green space, open-air meeting locations, and more. But the outdoor retailer decided in August to sell the buildings and land due to the pandemic and shift to remote work.

Facebook was seen as a potential buyer, given that it already signed leases for more than 800,000 square feet of office space across three buildings being developed at the Spring District: Blocks 6, 16, and 24.

Site developer Wright Runstad & Company and Shorenstein Properties purchased an undeveloped 2-acre portion of REI’s property for $22.4 million. Greg Johnson, CEO at Wright Runstad & Company, said the plan is to develop another 300,000 square-foot building in the coming months.

REI said today that the sale “represents a positive return on the co-op’s investment in the property and will enable important investments in REI’s customer-facing innovations, its nonprofit partners and carbon reduction goals.” REI paid nearly $50 million for the campus in 2017.

REI will move to a less centralized headquarters approach that spans multiple locations across the Seattle region.

Facebook and REI also said today they will each donate $1 million to Eastrail, a new 42-mile trail system that connects Eastside cities.

Facebook will have around 2,300 employees at the new complex, which is set to open later this year.

The Spring District is a 36-acre development that is adjacent to a new light rail station opening in 2023. It is also the home of the Global Innovation Exchange, the technology innovation graduate program created by the University of Washington, Tsinghua University, and Microsoft.

Facebook now has more than 3 million square feet of office space in the Seattle area. The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company will maintain its operations around downtown Seattle, where it first arrived in 2010 and has been expanding in various buildings. Facebook employs more than 5,000 people in the Seattle region and has more than 400 open jobs.

“Our growth over the last decade is a testament to the thriving community and immense talent pool that has welcomed us with open arms,” Nick Raby, a real estate exec for Facebook, said in a statement today. “This purchase doubles downs on our investment in Bellevue and our commitment to the Pacific Northwest.”

Using conventional office space ratios as an estimate, Facebook’s future capacity in the area could be north of 20,000 people.

The company employs 52,534 people worldwide as of June 30, up 32 percent from a year ago.

Employees at the Seattle-area offices work on areas including infrastructure and machine learning, and products such as Messenger, Marketplace and Games.

Bellevue, meanwhile, continues to attract big tech companies. “This is more exciting news for Bellevue,” said Joe Fain, CEO of the Bellevue Chamber. “Facebook’s expansion on the Eastside not only means more great technology jobs for our region, but it also means being home to another global company that is committed to giving back to our local community.”

Earlier this month Amazon said it would add another 10,000 jobs in Bellevue as it grows beyond its headquarters in downtown Seattle. Amazon has been at odds with the Seattle City Council for years over its impact on the community, and efforts by the city to impose new taxes on big businesses. Last year, after a prior tax battle, the company announced plans to move its worldwide operations to Bellevue.

Both Amazon and Facebook continue expanding their physical office space footprints despite the pandemic. Facebook last month inked a 730,000 square-foot lease in Manhattan. Amazon said last month that it will spend $1.4 billion on nearly 1 million square feet of new physical office space in six U.S. cities for 3,500 tech jobs.

Facebook is allowing employees to work from home until July 2021; Amazon is doing the same for workers until January.

Google also continues to scoop up office space in the Seattle region. Last month the company bought more land in another eastside city, Kirkland, Wash. Google has more than 2 million square feet of office space around Seattle, with more than 5,750 employees in the region.

There are now more than 130 companies from around the globe that have set up engineering outposts in and around Seattle. But layoffs this year at companies including Airbnb and Uber makes the future of at least some of these outposts as an engine for tech job growth more uncertain.

 

Taylor Soper is GeekWire's managing editor, responsible for coordinating the newsroom, planning coverage, and editing stories. A native of Portland, Ore., and graduate of the University of Washington, he was previously a GeekWire staff reporter, covering beats including startups and sports technology. Follow him @taylor_soper and email taylor@geekwire.com.