Lower East Olive Way bars and restaurants, get your social network together. Facebook is moving its Seattle engineering office to one of the Metropolitan Park “zebra” buildings just across I-5 from Capitol Hill:
The company today announced that it will move from its office near Pike Place Market to a larger space on Minor Avenue, just below the base of Capitol Hill, in February.
There’s enough room at the new office to more than triple the size of the Seattle office, which is already the company’s largest engineering site outside of its Palo Alto headquarters.
While the new space is not far from the tech city and nerd bar heaven being built around South Lake Union, it’s not too much of a climb across I-5 to reach the Hill. The room for a potential 200 or so young geeks working just a Minor Ave to Olive Way to E Olive Way jump to Capitol Hill isn’t likely to change the economy of this area of the Hill but it won’t hurt either. A young, well-paid workforce nearby will be worth catering to. And we’re sure the young bucks will want to check out iPad-powered the Social when it opens in coming months.
The move also sets up the perfect Capitol Hill commute for any social networking developer currently considering Belltown. Not that we’re recruiting or anything.
This post will devolve into an argument on what the correct nickname of those buildings is.
My vote: flour and sugar containers.
stacks of serving trays
I’ve always just thought of them as the “1980’s idea of futuristic” buildings.
midget twin towers
I’ve heard them called the ‘lego’ buildings.
Toaster buildings
Electric razor buildings.
These folks are in my building now. I don’t think they’re gonna be sidling up to any of the local bars anytime soon – these people are nerdier than nerdy! We’re talking wearing fleece with the facebook logo to work and posters of Katy Perry up in the office nerdy. One of these dudes drives a freaking Lambourgini Diablo to the office. Trying WAY TOO HARD nerdy.
when i worked in one of them we called them the canned ham buildings
Seconded: it’s the Twin Toasters. As Officially Declared by the residents of South I-5 shores.
I wish I had the cash for a Lambourgini.
Of course, I wouldn’t be caught dead buying one.
I just wish I had the cash for one. :-p
I’m not seeing the toaster resemblance. What kind of toaster is striped? Not snark, inquiring mind(s) want to know.
Even nerdy programming geeks like to party. Surprised?
The horizontal stripes give the buildings a broad, squat appearance suggesting toasters.
Also, giant bread slices fit into the slots on the roof, so…
I watched them go up and immediately called them ‘The Plastic Buildings’. There was a controversy at the time of construction about the fire-retarding properties of the plastic siding. I don’t recall now if there was an actual fire during construction or if someone just discovered too late that the material was flammable. Whichever, the Goodtime Charlie Royer government gave them its blessing…