MENLO PARK — Facebook’s social media empire is rising, and as the tech firm pushes for more office space and a hotel, fears that the growth will drive up housing prices and clog the roads with traffic are climbing too.
Gabriela Murillo, 47, purchased her first home in Menlo Park about 14 years ago, long before the social media giant took over Sun Microsystems’ campus off Bayfront Expressway. Since Facebook first moved to the city in 2011, she’s noticed her neighborhood has become safer, recalling a time when it was common for security bars to adorn the windows. The value of her home has gone up, too, but she said it’s also sad to see neighbors leave because of soaring rents.
When rush hour hits, the roads are already too congested for Murillo to bear.
“I prefer not to go out with a car. If my husband is out already I can ask him to pick up eggs or milk. It takes forever,” she said.
Menlo Park isn’t the only city that is struggling with housing and traffic woes. Cupertino is dealing with Apple’s expansion and Mountain View has both Google and LinkedIn. The booming Bay Area job market fuels traffic throughout the entire region, making it a difficult problem for one city to solve.
“Facebook’s arrival to Menlo Park definitely coincided with the overall economy in the region taking off. So a lot of the traffic growth that we’ve seen not only across Menlo Park, but the South Bay, Peninsula and San Francisco is really due to growth in employment across the entire region,” said Nikki Nagaya, Menlo Park’s transportation manager.
Working with world-renowed architect Frank Gehry, Facebook wants to build two new office buildings totaling 962,400 square feet, a 200-room limited service hotel, a public green space and a bicycle and pedestrian bridge on the 58 acres it purchased from TE Connectivity. Meanwhile, the company is also converting a 184,460-square-foot warehouse building into office space.
The two new office buildings would hold up to 6,400 employees and the hotel would be staffed with 150 workers. Built in two phases, construction on the project — if approved — is expected to be completed by 2020.
Facebook says it works to manage the traffic flowing in and out of its campus. Daily vehicle trips are capped and the company offers other transportation options for its employees, including bikes, trams, shuttles, carpooling and ferries. Partnering with SamTrans, the tech firm is also funding a $1 million study to improve transportation along the Dumbarton corridor, which could help ease regional traffic in the future.
“Facebook is committed to being a good neighbor. We understand that our growth affects the everyday lives of our neighbors, and we want to be respectful and thoughtful about how we approach our expansion. The future of Menlo Park is extremely important to us, which is why we work with city and community leaders to tackle local priorities, including transportation, housing and the environment,” the company said in a statement.
About 54 percent of people get to Facebook by making solo trips in a car or motorcycle, which is lower than the city and county average, according to January data from the company. The tech firm has also floated the idea of building thousands of housing units on its campus and a 56-acre site it purchased from Prologis and funded 15 below-market-rate units in the Anton Menlo apartment complex.
But as Facebook expands amid other developments in Menlo Park, traffic in the area is expected to get worse, a draft study on the impact of the project shows. Even with a cap, Facebook’s campus expansion could generate 16,329 vehicle trips daily and 13 streets could have “significant” impacts.
Noting that the project for the TE Connectivity site doesn’t include housing and that less than 5 percent of Facebook employees live in Menlo Park, the study didn’t identify housing and population growth as a major impact. But a separate analysis for the city said Facebook’s expansion could have a modest impact on regional housing prices.
Facebook’s track record of managing traffic, volunteering, hosting community events and providing donations to local nonprofits and schools might be enough to convince city officials to allow the campus expansion to move forward. As they weigh the costs and benefits, city officials will also negotiate community benefits in an agreement with Facebook.
At a recent Planning Commission meeting about the study, construction workers, nonprofit leaders and some nearby residents said they supported Facebook’s expansion.
“Public input is a key part of the decision making. As you saw, there was actually one person who simply put it on the line and said what Facebook does and brings to our community outweighs the elements that are for most part out of their control,” said commissioner Henry Riggs in an interview after the meeting. The project is scheduled to go before the Menlo Park City Council for approval in September.
Some Menlo Park workers won’t be around to see how Facebook’s campus expansion plays out.
For four years, Katie Stern, a second-grade teacher at Beechwood School in Menlo Park, gave herself an hour and half every day to drive to her job from San Francisco.
Looking to buy a home, Stern said she and her husband couldn’t find an affordable place closer to Menlo Park with a better commute. The median list price of a home in Menlo Park is about $2 million, according to realtor.com.
The couple decided to move to Novato and Stern is leaving her job at Beechwood after the summer.
“I had several co-workers who were living closer to Beechwood who had to leave the Peninsula and move to the East Bay because their rents tripled,” she said.
Starting a new job in San Rafael in the fall, there’s one silver lining that comes with moving: a 20-minute commute.
Contact Queenie Wong at 408-920-2706. Follow her at Twitter.com/QwongSJ.
