Dive Brief:
- LinkedIn officials presented the company's plans for a new 1.1. million-square-foot headquarters in Mountain View, CA, to the Mountain View City Council on Wednesday, according to the Mountain View Voice.
- The online business networking giant proposes to build three new six-story buildings and tie them into two existing buildings on the site, creating a "hub" for all of its area employees. The company plans to utilize the older buildings while the four-year, new-construction project is underway.
- City officials said LinkedIn will provide approximately $15 million for affordable housing and $9 million in other benefits — such as bike lanes and city library funding — in exchange for being permitted to build out the site. The city expects to approve a final version of the plan in 2018.
Dive Insight:
Back in July, Google and LinkedIn made a land swap deal that resolved a tug of war over the limited parcels of premium land left in the North Bayshore area of Mountain View. Google gave up sites in Mountain View and neighboring Sunnyvale to LinkedIn, which paid the search engine giant $334 million. Google paid the business networking company $215 million for land that included LinkedIn's existing headquarters.
The deal resolved a situation between the two companies, which sprung from a decision by the Mountain View City Council to give approval to LinkedIn to build a new headquarters but to deny Google permission to build a Bjarke Ingels Group-designed expansion of its existing campus. Instead, the council allocated only 515,000 square feet for the company to build on.
After that setback, Google decided to build a secondary campus, tied into the original on another parcel. Called "Charleston East," the new 600,000-square-foot building will be able to accommodate 3,000 employees and will feature a 2-acre public plaza. The building will feature high-performance energy systems, all under an opaque, tent-like roof.