Facebook’s West Campus construction costs exceed $1 billion

The trend of tech mega campuses continues to transform the face of Silicon Valley, thanks to companies with nearly unlimited pools of cash building palatial headquarters designed to keep employees within arm’s reach.

Case in point: Facebook.

According to a new analysis from BuildZoom, Facebook has filed more than $1 billion in construction permits in Menlo Park for its West Campus, which was designed by famed architect Frank Gehry.

It’s important to note that building permits only represent a portion of the cost of a project, and so actual costs are likely much higher. For instance, BuildZoom previously reported that building permits for Apple Park were about $1.1 billion, though other estimates have put the total cost closer to $5 billion. Google is also hard at work on its own ambitious building plans in Mountain View, California.

For Facebook’s West Campus, the first building of the project — officially dubbed MPK 20, with 433,000 square feet — opened in March 2015 and was tagged with $177 million in construction permits, according to BuildZoom. But the next two buildings carried even steeper price tags: $303 million and $300 million, respectively. .

BuildZoom says the permits also include:

• MPK 21, a Gehry-designed extension of MPK 20: $300 million
• MPK 22, a Gehry-designed 4-story office building: $303 million
• An 8-story parking structure: $73 million
• MPK 23, a renovated warehouse: $27.3 million

All of this is in addition to the 1 million square foot campus that Facebook purchased from the former Sun Microsystems. In addition, Facebook is reportedly on the cusp of signing a deal for the entire 43-story Park Tower in San Francisco, which would give the company 750,000 square feet in the heart of the city.

Facebook is also in the early stages of developing Willow Village, a 49-acre mix-use space that will include residential areas.

With local governments reluctant to turn down requests for these aggressive expansions, companies such as Facebook, Google, Apple, and many others will likely continue to apply pressure on the region’s already pricey housing market.