LinkedIn pitches plan for East Whisman campus

As Google finalizes plans to transform much of North Bayshore into a signature campus, its longtime rival is moving forward briskly to create its own new headquarters on Mountain View’s east side.

This week, LinkedIn representatives presented new plans for a new East Whisman office campus totaling almost 1.1 million square feet, right on Mountain View’s border with Sunnyvale. The proposed campus would merge several existing office buildings and parcels just east of Highway 237 into a new showcase for the tech company.

“This is a transformational design of this site; we want a place where we can have the majority of our staff, so they aren’t spread throughout the neighborhood,” said LinkedIn Vice President Jim Mortgensen. “We consider this a hub for our employees.”

The plans call for a trio of new six-story office buildings that would be constructed around a cluster of older two-story offices already at the site. The company plans to move its employees into the older buildings starting this summer, but the full construction project is expected to take four years to complete.

In a study session on Tuesday, May 3, the Mountain View City Council took its first look at the project and the package of community benefits it would bring. The project comes at an awkward time — the city is currently trying to decide on its East Whisman precise plan to guide future development in the area. City planners indicated that shouldn’t be a big hurdle. The LinkedIn project seems to comply with the city’s main precise plan goals, such as consolidating dense office space along local highways and including plenty of open space.

The biggest complaint about the new design came from the Costa Mesa Terrace neighborhood, a Sunnyvale condominium park just east of the project site. Like other speakers, resident Nicole Pasini pointed out that the LinkedIn project would plant a six-story parking garage just across the street from her front door.

“I’m disappointed that a huge parking garage is going to right on the other side of our wall,” she said. “Obviously having nothing here would be better, but I don’t want to be excessively NIMBY.”

Many neighbors urged the council to compel LinkedIn to add underground parking, but the company’s team said it would be too expensive. Representatives said they were planning to put one level of parking underground, but digging further would cost about $100,000 per parking spot, Mortgensen said.

Siding with LinkedIn, city planners pointed out the project has a 100-foot setback, which complied with Sunnyvale’s planning guidelines. City Council members signaled they didn’t want to rejigger the whole project to move the garages, but they urged planners to keep as many trees as possible as a buffer. LinkedIn had planned to build a bicycle track along that side of the property, but City Council members preferred keeping the trees.

Plans for the new LinkedIn headquarters came about after the company announced a massive land swap with Google last year. LinkedIn gave Google rights to develop several sites in North Bayshore in exchange for seven properties near the Sunnyvale border. Under the swap, both companies effectively agreed to consolidate in different areas of Mountain View.

Elected leaders spent considerable time discussing the right mix of community benefits LinkedIn should provide with the project. LinkedIn would be obligated to provide about $15.5 million in housing impact fees, which the company offered to hand over even before there was a shovel in the ground.

City planners estimated the company would also need to provide about $9 million as a result of the bonus office space they were building. Council members had the problem of too many good ideas for how to use that money. They expressed support for studying a planned bike-pedestrian underpass to cross Highway 237 at Maude Avenue as well as adding bike lanes to an existing Middlefield Road underpass crossing 237. Any extra funding, they said, could go toward affordable housing or the city’s library.

The only amenity they nixed was LinkedIn’s offer to create new public open space. The company proposed making about 5 acres on the west side of its property into a public recreation area, but city officials frowned on the idea, saying it was an awkward spot for a new park.

“I just don’t see this park public space as a community benefit; I think it’s more of a benefit to your employees,” Rosenberg told the LinkedIn delegation. “You can try to activate that space with a farmer’s market, but I don’t see it (happening).”

Staff expects a final version of the plan to be brought back to the City Council sometime in 2018. If approved, LinkedIn plans to build the project in three phases.