SEATTLE — Facebook will buy REI’s so-new-it’s-never-been-used Bellevue campus for nearly $368 million, the social-media giant announced today.
The move further consolidates Facebook’s Eastside mini-empire in the upscale, multiuse Spring District east of I-405. Before the acquisition of the 400,000-square-foot REI offices, Facebook was already on track to lease nearly 850,000 square feet in three under-construction Spring District buildings.
Facebook, which opened its first Puget Sound office in 2010 with three engineers, now employs more than 5,000 local workers across 3 million square feet of space in dozens of locations in Seattle, Bellevue and Redmond, placing it neck-and-neck with Google for the title of the area’s largest out-of-town tech employer.
The Seattle area is home to Facebook’s second-largest engineering hub, after its Menlo Park headquarters.