The Microsoft campus is the corporate headquarters of
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
, located in
Redmond, Washington
Redmond is a city in King County, Washington, United States, located east of Seattle. The population was 73,256 at the 2020 census, up from 54,144 in 2010.
Redmond is best known as the home of Microsoft and Nintendo of America.
With an an ...
, United States, a part of the
Seattle metropolitan area
The Seattle metropolitan area is an urban conglomeration in the U.S. state of Washington that comprises Seattle, its surrounding satellites and suburbs. It contains the three most populous counties in the stateāKing, Snohomish, and Pierceā ...
. Microsoft initially moved onto the grounds of the campus on February 26, 1986, shortly before going public on March 13. The headquarters has undergone multiple expansions since its establishment and is presently estimated to encompass over of office space and have over 50,000 employees.
Additional offices in the
Eastside suburbs of
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
are located in
Bellevue Bellevue means "beautiful view" in French. It may refer to:
Placenames
Australia
* Bellevue, Western Australia
* Bellevue Hill, New South Wales
* Bellevue, Queensland
* Bellevue, Glebe, an historic house in Sydney, New South Wales
Canada ...
and
Issaquah
Issaquah ( ) is a city in King County, Washington, United States. The population was 40,051 at the 2020 census. Located in a valley and bisected by Interstate 90, the city is bordered by the Sammamish Plateau to the north and the "Issaquah Alp ...
. Building 92 on the campus contains a visitor center (with interactive exhibits) and store that are open to the public.
History
Microsoft chose to move its headquarters from
Bellevue Bellevue means "beautiful view" in French. It may refer to:
Placenames
Australia
* Bellevue, Western Australia
* Bellevue Hill, New South Wales
* Bellevue, Queensland
* Bellevue, Glebe, an historic house in Sydney, New South Wales
Canada ...
to nearby
Redmond in January 1985, selecting a plot of land that would be developed by
Wright Runstad & Company. Construction began on August 9, and Microsoft moved into the $25 million facility on February 26, 1986, several weeks before the company's
initial public offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
. The move generated some concerns about increased
traffic congestion
Traffic congestion is a condition in transport that is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular queueing. Traffic congestion on urban road networks has increased substantially since the 1950s. When traffic de ...
on the unfinished
State Route 520 freeway between Bellevue and Redmond; a new freeway interchange at Northeast 40th Street would later be built in 2000 to service the campus, after lobbying and partial funding from Microsoft.
The initial campus was situated on a lot with six buildings and was able to accommodate 800 employees, growing to 1,400 by 1988.
The site was once home to chicken farms in the 1920s that were ultimately demolished.
The campus was originally leased to Microsoft from the
Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association
The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA, formerly TIAA-CREF), is a Fortune 100 financial services organization that is the leading provider of financial services in the academic, research, ...
, a
pension fund
A pension fund, also known as a superannuation fund in some countries, is any plan, fund, or scheme which provides retirement income.
Pension funds typically have large amounts of money to invest and are the major investors in listed and priva ...
manager, until it was bought back in 1992. The original buildings were given sequential numbers, with the exception of 7 due to a delay in permitting that became indefinite.
A pond between the original buildings was nicknamed "Lake Bill" for
Bill Gates
William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...
and was used for post-project celebrations, namely managers being thrown in after a successful launch.
The first major expansion of the campus came in 1992, bringing the total amount of office space to across of land. Microsoft also announced its intention to contain most of its future growth within Redmond, while retaining some offices in
Downtown Bellevue
Downtown Bellevue is the central business district of Bellevue, Washington, United States. It is bounded by I-405 to the east, NE 12th Street to the north, 100th Ave NE to the west, and Main Street to the south, and covers an area of around . I ...
and its
Factoria
Factoria is a mixed-use suburban neighborhood in south Bellevue, Washington and is one of the city's significant commercial districts. Originally timberland from the 1890s to 1920s and later envisioned as an industrial center, Factoria has since ...
district. The Redmond campus was plagued by hundreds of
rabbit
Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit speci ...
s who spread around the area in the late 1990s.
In January 2006, Microsoft announced the purchase of
Safeco's Redmond campus after the company had begun consolidating its offices at the
Safeco Tower
The UW Tower is a high-rise office building complex located in the University District of Seattle, Washington, United States. It was completed in 1975 and serves as the head offices of the University of Washington. The 22-story tower was design ...
in Seattle's
University District a year earlier. The following month, Microsoft announced that it intended to expand its Redmond campus by at a cost of $1 billion and said that this would create space for between 7,000 and 15,000 new employees over the following three years. The campus expansion also included more prominent branding and additional recreation areas.
In 2009, a
shopping mall
A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...
called "The Commons" was completed on the campus, bringing of retail space as well as restaurants, a
soccer field
A football pitch (also known as soccer field) is the playing surface for the game of association football. Its dimensions and markings are defined by Law 1 of the Laws of the Game, "The Field of Play". The pitch is typically made of natural tu ...
and a
pub
A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...
, to the West Campus.
Latest expansion
In September 2015, ''
The Seattle Times
''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington (s ...
'' reported that Microsoft had hired
architecture firm
In the United States, an architectural firm or architecture firm is a business that employs one or more licensed architects and practices the profession of architecture; while in South Africa, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark and other countri ...
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is an American architectural, urban planning and engineering firm. It was founded in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel A. Owings, Nathaniel Owings in Chicago, Illinois. In 1939, they were joined by engineer Jo ...
to begin a multibillion-dollar redesign of the Redmond campus, using an additional permitted by an agreement with the City of Redmond.
The City of Redmond had also approved a rezone in February that year to raise the
height limit
Height restriction laws are laws that restrict the maximum height of structures.
There are a variety of reasons for these measures. Some restrictions limit the height of new buildings so as not to block views of an older work decreed to be an imp ...
for buildings on the campus from six stories to ten.
In November 2017, Microsoft announced plans to demolish 12 buildings on the older East Campus and replace them with 18 new buildings, adding to house 8,000 additional employees. The newer buildings would be arranged like an urban neighborhood, centered around a open space with sports fields (including a
cricket pitch
In the game of cricket, the cricket pitch consists of the central strip of the cricket field between the wickets. It is long (1 chain) and wide. The surface is flat and is normally covered with extremely short grass, but can be completely d ...
), retail space, and hiking trails. The program is planned to raise the total number of buildings on the campus to 131. A digital recreation of the future campus was made available in
Minecraft Education Edition
''Minecraft'' is a sandbox game developed by Mojang Studios. The game was created by Markus "Notch" Persson in the Java programming language. Following several early private testing versions, it was first made public in May 2009 before being ...
in November 2018. Demolition of the original buildings, including all of the original X-shaped offices built in the 1980s, began in January 2019 and was completed that September.
The expanded campus, scheduled to open in 2023, will have 17 office buildings and four floors of underground parking with capacity for 6,500 vehicles. A pedestrian bridge will connect the new campus buildings to the Redmond Technology light rail station and the West Campus site. A set of 875 wells to harness
geothermal energy
Geothermal energy is the thermal energy in the Earth's crust which originates from the formation of the planet and from radioactive decay of materials in currently uncertain but possibly roughly equal proportions. The high temperature and pres ...
will provide heating and cooling to buildings on the campus through of water pipes that comprise a
geoexchange
A ground source heat pump (also geothermal heat pump) is a heating/cooling system for buildings that uses a type of heat pump to transfer heat to or from the ground, taking advantage of the relative constancy of temperatures of the earth through ...
system.
Description
The Microsoft campus in Redmond sits on and has 83 buildings. The company has a total of 125 buildings in the
Puget Sound region
The Puget Sound region is a coastal area of the Pacific Northwest in the U.S. state of Washington, including Puget Sound, the Puget Sound lowlands, and the surrounding region roughly west of the Cascade Range and east of the Olympic Mountains. ...
and employs 53,576 people.
Transportation
The campus is located on both sides of the
State Route 520 freeway, which connects it to the cities of
Bellevue Bellevue means "beautiful view" in French. It may refer to:
Placenames
Australia
* Bellevue, Western Australia
* Bellevue Hill, New South Wales
* Bellevue, Queensland
* Bellevue, Glebe, an historic house in Sydney, New South Wales
Canada ...
and
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
as well as Redmond
city center
A city centre is the commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely equivalent terms exist in other languages, such as "" in Fren ...
. Microsoft partially covered the cost for an
overpass
An overpass (called an overbridge or flyover in the United Kingdom and some other Commonwealth countries) is a bridge, road, railway or similar structure that crosses over another road or railway. An ''overpass'' and ''underpass'' together form ...
over the freeway at NE 36th Street to relieve congestion on other cross-streets in the area.
The campus is served by buses to Seattle and other
Eastside cities at the
Overlake Transit Center
Redmond Technology station, formerly Overlake Transit Center, is a bus station and future light rail station in Redmond, Washington, United States. The current bus station opened in 2002 and is located on the headquarters campus of Microsoft; i ...
, operated by
Sound Transit
Sound Transit (ST), officially the Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority, is a public transit agency serving the Seattle metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Washington. It operates the Link light rail system in Seattle and Tacoma, r ...
and
King County Metro
King County Metro, officially the King County Metro Transit Department and often shortened to Metro, is the public transit authority of King County, Washington, which includes the city of Seattle. It is the eighth-largest transit bus agency in t ...
. The
RapidRide B Line
The B Line is one of six RapidRide lines (routes with some bus rapid transit features) operated by King County Metro in King County, Washington. The B Line began service on October 1, 2011, running between downtown Redmond, Overlake
Overlake ...
also runs through the campus, connecting to downtown Bellevue and Redmond. The transit center opened in 2002 and will be the eastern terminus of the
East Link light rail extension, scheduled to open in 2023. Microsoft partnered with Sound Transit and the City of Redmond to fund a
pedestrian bridge
A footbridge (also a pedestrian bridge, pedestrian overpass, or pedestrian overcrossing) is a bridge designed solely for pedestrians.''Oxford English Dictionary'' While the primary meaning for a bridge is a structure which links "two points at a ...
connecting the light rail station to both sides of its campus planned to open in 2020, providing $33.3 million of the cost.
For employees, Microsoft also operates a
commuter bus service called "The Connector" that provides non-stop service from the Redmond campus to neighborhoods in Seattle, the Eastside, and
Snohomish County
Snohomish County () is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. With a population of 827,957 as of the 2020 census, it is the third-most populous county in Washington, after nearby King and Pierce counties, and the 75th-most populous ...
. The shuttles, which began operating in 2007, were targeted in early 2014 as a symbol of
gentrification
Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and urban planning, planning. Gentrification ...
in similar fashion to the
San Francisco tech bus protests
The San Francisco tech bus protests were a series of protests in the San Francisco Bay Area beginning in late 2013, when the use of shuttle buses employed by local area tech companies became widely publicized. The tech buses have been called "G ...
that same year. The company also runs a
shuttle bus service
Public transport bus services are generally based on regular operation of transit buses along a route calling at agreed bus stops according to a published public transport timetable.
History of buses Origins
While there are indications ...
, called the "Shuttle Connect", between buildings on the campus.
References
External links
Facts About MicrosoftCampus map
{{Redmond, Washington
Microsoft
Information technology company headquarters in the United States
Buildings and structures in Redmond, Washington
Office buildings completed in 1986
1986 establishments in Washington (state)
Office buildings in Washington (state)