Facebook inks another lease in Seattle area, where it now has 7K employees and 3.3M square feet

A rendering of the Block 5 office building planned for Bellevue’s Spring District (Image via SpringDistrict.com)

Facebook is buying more space in the sprawling Spring District in Bellevue, Washington, and securing a lease for Block 5, an 11-story, 345,000-square-foot office building due to open in 2023.

The social media giant has built a sizable presence in the Seattle area with more than 7,000 employees and roughly 3.3 million square feet of office space. The development center is the company’s largest outside of its Menlo Park, California headquarters.

The Puget Sound Business Journal first reported on the new lease, calling Facebook “the driver” of Wright Runstad & Co.’s $ 2.8 billion Spring District project last fall, Facebook announced it had $ 367.6 million US dollar to buy a brand new 6 acre, 400,000 square foot complex in development that was originally intended as REI’s new headquarters.

In addition to this space and Block 5, Facebook has signed leases for more than 800,000 square feet of office space in three buildings under development in the Spring District: Blocks 6, 16, and 24.

“Given the highly competitive real estate market in the region, we’re always looking for ways to accommodate our growing teams,” Facebook spokeswoman Tracy Clayton told GeekWire on Tuesday. “The lease for Block 5 was a natural opportunity to expand where we are already present.”

This interactive map shows the floor plan of the transit-oriented Spring District east of downtown Bellevue.

Rajeev Rajan, vice president of engineering and head of Facebook for the Pacific Northwest, had previously told GeekWire of the company’s excitement over its growing Bellevue presence.

“We think it could be very similar to what we call the ‘classic campus’,” said Rajan. “It offers an opportunity for many talents on the East Side who may not have previously wanted to take the trip across the lake to commute.”

Facebook has a relatively new office complex in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood, and Rajan said there are no plans to leave that area.

“We are generally growing in the region … and we are definitely looking for capacity in the Pacific Northwest,” said Rajan. “So we’re going to look for real estate everywhere.”

Amazon is also growing in Bellevue, expanding the tech giant’s second headquarters with new and rented towers and plans for up to 25,000 employees in the city across Lake Washington from Seattle.