Expedia Displays Seattle Waterfront Campus; Project in Final Stage of Completion
Former Expedia Group CEO- Dara Khosrowshahi along with former Seattle Mayor Ed Murray revealed the initial details of the waterfront campus project in April 2015. This project is an ambitious project of Expedia. Expedia will shift its headquarters to Seattle from Bellevue, Washington State after completion.
Both the key members have completed their tenure and moved, but the Expedia’s ambitious project stayed and is in its final stage of completion.
On Wednesday for the first time after four years, the company showed the waterfront campus view to media and Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan. The project is worth $900 million. The new campus will notice employees reaching within a few months.
The first employees of Expedia will arrive at the campus in October 2019. Team of hundred employees will come to the campus at a time till next summer by then the entire construction work will be finished.
For Expedia workers, the new headquarter is 12 miles away from its current Bellevue headquarter over Lake Washington. The new HQ is completely different with amazing environment- a sprawling area with breathtaking waterfront scene across the Interbay Seattle’s neighborhood.
Durkan mentioned,
I don’t think there’s an urban campus like this in America that I’ve seen. I also think it shows the amazing vitality of Seattle. You’ve got Amazon that has a very urban campus building base and Expedia, which is going to have this amazing campus that pulls in the environment around it, and then you see everything in between.
Tech Companies Expanding in Seattle
Expedia is not the only one to expand in Seattle. Recently, Apple, the tech firm, on Monday, announced its important expansion plan in the city that will offer employment to 2000 youngsters within five years. Google, another tech giant firm’s new campus, will get thousands of employees to a much-crowded part of the city within some years.
Expedia is working across various solutions of upcoming traffic crunch, shuttle service, and vanpools.
One Expedia official claims to have the largest bike storage facility within a corporate office. Apart from this, Expedia will offer $5 each day to employees who won’t come by vehicle to campus.
For years, the city of Seattle has associated with Expedia to discover ways to reduce traffic consequences, Durkan mentioned. Seattle and Expedia are working together with King County Metro so as to add more bus services and looking at alternative ways as well.
Durkan informed, the top priority is to ensure people have a house close to the place they work, because the closer the house is, less people are going to bring their vehicle.
Waterfront Campus Details
Expedia’s waterfront campus is greatly in progress. Crew members are restructuring existing building so as to open grounds for Expedia. Expedia is offering two acres of the campus to a public area that consist of new beach park and reconstructing pedestrian and bike path throughout the campus to carry people to Seattle’s waterfront.
The new Expedia campus has ‘biophilic design’ that connects people to nature increases the physical and mental health of people by watching amazing water scenes.
Expedia considers some acres for outdoor space, will include playing area, amphitheater and meeting spaces, upgraded with WiFi and advanced mobile data.
On the campus border close to water, consist of a building partially underground, where large team meeting will happen. The building roof is covered with grass. At the center of the campus, there is ‘Prow.’ Prow is designed like a ship.