The new international headquarters for Microsoft Research, Building 99, has been officially opened.
It is the first of seven new buildings on Microsoft’s West Campus. The company’s Entertainment and Devices Division will occupy four of the seven new buildings, part of the 1.4 million square feet of West Campus currently under construction.
Planned for completion in April 2009, West Campus will feature a central campus commons, offering employees convenient amenities such as a post office, a mini-spa, a bookstore and 12 food venues.
“Continuing to build a world-class campus in Redmond is critical to a company like Microsoft that has innovative people as its greatest asset,” said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft and the executive overseeing the expansion.
“The physical campus growth the company announced today underlines our investment in Redmond and the greater Puget Sound area and shows our commitment to our future.”
Microsoft also announced that it has doubled its space investments to expand its Redmond campus beyond what the company announced in early 2006. At that time, Microsoft unveiled a plan to execute roughly half of its 15- to 20-year development with the City of Redmond by 2009.
Updates to the plan now include an additional 21 leased sites in Bellevue, Wash.; Issaquah, Wash.; Redmond; and Seattle, which will provide a combined total of 5.5 million square feet and the capacity to house approximately 19,000 people based on the current conceptual layout. Microsoft’s original plan called for seven new buildings, seven building acquisitions and two new leases to provide a combined total of 3.1 million square feet.
“Microsoft continues to grow at a healthy pace, and this growth means strengthening our physical infrastructures,” said Brad Smith, senior vice president at Microsoft.
Microsoft also announced that site planning is currently under way for two new buildings on the former Safeco Corp. headquarters site it acquired in 2006. The company will also begin site planning for the addition of new buildings on the land it acquired from Nintendo of America Inc. earlier this year. Both of these projects are outside the three-year expansion Microsoft began in February 2006. Construction start and end dates for both sites have not yet been set.
“The fact is, Microsoft is and continues to be a mainstay for Washington’s economy,” said Washington state Gov. Chris Gregoire.
“Not only does it create and support thousands of high-wage jobs, but it also generates enduring prosperity. It serves as a magnet for other software and high-tech companies in Washington. And many former Microsoft employees have tapped their wealth and know-how to start new business enterprises and charitable foundations.”
Many of Microsoft’s worldwide employees work in the Puget Sound area. The company employs more than 36,000 in the Puget Sound region and another 46,000 globally. |
