Original Source: "Mobility & Tech: Facebook's One Stop Mobility Hub" by Matt Davis, for Parking & Mobility Magazine
Photo by Lucas Fladzinski
Mobility is key to connecting Facebook employees throughout their sprawling Menlo Park headquarters. This includes the new Menlo Gateway, a 16 acre project nearing completion of its second phase that has transformed a former industrial complex into Facebook’s latest expansion. The mixed-use project adds 694,000 square feet of office space in three buildings, a 250 room luxury hotel and three parking structures to the Silicon Valley giant’s corporate campus.
To meet Facebook’s needs for keeping their employees mobile and the campus accessible, the phase-1 Independence parking structure offers a one-stop mobility hub. From a bike share program and shuttle system to expanded pick up and drop off zones, the garage was designed to make it easy for employees to get where they need to go, while also providing a number of amenities to facilitate multi-modal transportation.
Multi-Modal Efficiency
To support Facebook’s robust bike sharing program, the Independence Parking Structure features a secure Class 1 bicycle parking facility. Employees who bike to work can take advantage of lockers and showers and store their bike in a secured bike parking room. To further encourage bicycle use, a network of pedestrian and bicycle pathways were incorporated into the campus’ design.
In addition to cars and bicycles, the parking structure provides other multi-modal options to employees. Of the structure’s 1,040 stalls, 8 percent are reserved for carpools and clean-air and low-emission vehicles. A shuttle system routes employees all over Facebook’s campus, meaning even if they need to travel to other locations, they are not dependent on a vehicle to get where they need to go.
To improve efficiency, the 7-level parking structure incorporates a valet speed ramp to the fourth level, expediting throughput by separating hotel and office traffic.
Expanded Pick Up & Drop Off
In addition to the shuttle program, carpools and ridesharing are another mobility facet that Facebook encourages via an expanded pick up and drop off area. A specially designed one-way access road guides users around and behind the parking structure, where they can be dropped off and picked up safely and efficiently at the front door of the office building.
Employee-Focused Amenities
To support the sustainable culture of Silicon Valley, the parking structure features 32 EV charging stations, with infrastructure to add 32 more as need arises. However, as many office campuses are discovering, providing EV charging for employees who park in the same spot for extended periods means many of those chargers can go underutilized. Therefore, the facility provides a valet service to rotate vehicles through each charging station.
The Menlo Gateway Independence parking structure isn’t just a one-stop mobility hub. It also includes a 40,000 square foot state-of-the-art fitness center on the ground floor that is open to employees and features a café with outdoor seating.
To humanize the structure, the shear walls incorporate eye-catching public art in the form of dichroic glass that changes colors depending on the location of the sun in the sky and up lights at night.
Mobility hubs such as the one incorporated at Facebook’s Menlo Gateway campus give employees more flexibility to choose the way they travel. As we find greater need to stay flexible and adaptive in our current landscape, this mindset will continue to offer exciting opportunities to innovate new, efficient, multimodal and sustainable design solutions.
