A mockup of Anton Menlo, Facebook's future housing complex.
Facebook already has some of the best employee perks in the world, from four months of maternity and paternity leave to on-site barber shops. Now it's creating the ultimate perk: housing.
Facebook is building what the Wall Street Journal dubs a small "town" for employees, Anton Menlo. The housing complex will cost $120 million to build and it will create 394 units, WSJ's Reed Albergotti reports. The town will be 630,000 square-feet and it won't just include apartments. It will have shops, like a local sports bar and a doggy day care facility. The mockup also shows an outdoor community pool.
Anton Menlo will be walking distance - or a five minute bike ride - from Facebook's Menlo Park headquarters. Facebook is working with St. Anton Partners, a Bay area developer. Most units will belong to Facebook employees and will be sold at market rates, but 15 will be open to non-Facebook employees and reserved for low-income housing. It's not clear when the complex will be ready for residents.
Other tech companies have started merging home and office life. Evernote offers a bi-monthly cleaning service for all of its employees, for example. But Facebook's new initiative is on a whole different level.
Facebook wants to make employees feel like they're living and working on a college campus, not in a corporate environment. That's as nice a gesture as it is scary. Now employees really won't be able to escape their employer's influence, even in the comfort of their homes.