Facebook has just opened a new office space located in New York’s Astor Place neighborhood and has begun moving inside the new offices. Facebook is set on recruiting personnel from New York and the office space was opened to house the New York engineers who are already working with the company. Facebook has announced on its blog that the recruiting process will last for the next month or so, the company searching for engineering talent in New York.
Current engineers who will be working in the new Facebook New York offices are currently occupied with products like Pages, Mobile solutions, artificial intelligence and location news feeds. The continuous expansion of Facebook New York demonstrates the company’s new-found priorities and its recent history shows how the social media giant’s empire has spread in the city. The number of Facebook employees in New York has risen from 80 to about 400 in the past three years. The new office space was designed by Frank Gehry, who had previously worked on the Guggenheim Bilbao.
While the move has begun today, the new Facebook office won’t be officially opened until Sprint 2015. According to Facebook, the new office space will not only serve as a work-space, but as a new location where Facebook fans and employees alike would be able to participate in conventions and tech meetings, as well as in occasional party-ventures. The office space is located in the former space of John Wanamaker’s department store, next to companies like Billboard and AOL. The new space Facebook will be moving has two floors and from the architect’s plans and miniatures, it actually resembles Google’s Mountain View HQ, with minimalist leisure spaces, dining halls and spacious offices. If all goes according to plan, the new space will be the host of many gatherings where Facebook employees can interact with talented individuals who might end up as a start-up financed by Facebook or as entrepreneurs working with the company.