Facebook readies room to grow, Google eyes LA

Seven-year-old Facebook is already fast outgrowing its current Silicon Valley abode.

The world's largest social network will shift its corporate headquarters starting this summer to a one -million-square-foot campus in Menlo Park, California, making its second move in less than two years.

Executives said the company, which turned seven on Friday, is seeking the space beyond its nearby Palo Alto base to contain its explosive expansion.

The company has seen its payroll swell by about 50% annually in past years to about 2,000 now, a pace it expects to sustain in coming years. Its new Menlo Park location can house about 3,600 people, executives said.

Facebook leased the campus -- the former headquarters of Sun Microsystems, which Oracle Corp took over in 2010 -- and will begin moving in June or July. The site, a cluster of blockish buildings and wide, open spaces, is known locally as "Sun Quentin" for what insiders say is a passing resemblance to a penal colony.

Facebook's move was announced the same day that Web arch-foe Google Inc said it had leased a Frank Gehry-designed office building a stone's throw from the sun-speckled beaches of Santa Monica, near Los Angeles.

Google leased the iconic former headquarters of the Chiat/Day advertising agency -- whose giant binoculars-shaped facade is a fixture of travel guide books -- in Venice, California, to house part of its own envisioned expansion, with 6,000 people set to join the company's payroll this year.

Industry experts say Google is finding it increasingly difficult to attract new, budding talent in the face of competition from hot start-ups in the Valley and from Facebook, which is expected to go public by 2012.

Google will remain based in Mountain View, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley.