Facebook formally announced this week that it is moving its headquarters to the old Sun Microsystems campus in Menlo Park.
Facebook said in a press release that it has been looking for a space that suits its long-term business needs and allows it to recreate the "small-community feel."
David Ebersman, Facebook's chief financial officer, formally announced the move in a news conference at the 57-acre Menlo Park property. The campus consists of nine buildings along Network Circle totaling 920,405 rentable square feet.
According to the company, it will acquire the former corporate campus of Sun Microsystems, which was vacated when that company was bought by Oracle last year.
Facebook then signed a leaseback deal with Oracle for the property, under which it will rent the nine building campus for 15 years with an option to buy it after five years. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Facebook also purchased the adjacent property owned by an affiliate of Ford Motors. The two properties are connected by an underground commuter tunnel, but Facebook has no plans to develop that property at this time.
Employees will move to the new campus in waves, the company said, beginning with the first group in June or July. Facebook currently employs more than 2,000 people, of which about 1,400 of them are in Palo Alto.
Facebook will continue to occupy its offices in Palo Alto through the rest of the year and possibly into next year, the company said.
John Tenanes, Facebook director of global real estate, said the company intends to expand its transit programs to help employees get to work without driving.
Facebook officials said the deal was brokered by Cornish & Carey, and the general contractor currently renovating one of the buildings on the new campus is SC Builders Inc. of Sunnyvale.
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