GAWKER: Facebook Is Building Its Own "Resort-Inspired" Factory Town

Move over Henry Ford. . .ku-xlarge5

A hundred years ago if you lived in the factory town you were owned by the company store. Employees lived hand to mouth needing to pay extra just to breathe. Things have changed dramatically. People have rights. Employees are viewed as valuable assets that need to be cared for well. Entertainment and comfort are key to maintaining employees healthy, happy and productive. Now social media moguls are paving the way to make towns for their employees. This isn’t just any kind of town, but “resort-inspired” facilities for employees of Facebook.

If you are a young urban professional looking for better and more fulfilling employment with more modern facilities maybe look into Facebook.

 

Facebook is dipping its big blue thumb into the real estate market, investing in a cushy 394-unit apartment complex that’s a 45-minute walk to its new Frank Gehry-designed Menlo Park campus . The $120 million Anton Menlo will be designed by architects at KTGY Group in a partnership with St. Anton Developers (hence the name) and offer a mix of studios and one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments on a 10-acre site. KTGY’s Keith Labus tells the San Francisco Chronicle the “resort-inspired” complex will have “everything the young professional could want to complement their busy lifestyle.” Amenities include a pool, rooftop deck, communal kitchen, bodega, bar, bike repair shop, yoga room, personal trainer, dog day care and a pet spa. A PET SPA, you guys! This all sounds eerily similar to HomeTown, the dorms of a Facebook-like company in Dave Eggers’ new novel The Circle , which was excerpted in the New York Times Magazine last weekend (and is also facing claims that Eggers lifted the story from an ex-Facebook memoirist ): She felt a profound sense of accomplishment and possibility that was accompanied, in short order, by a near-complete sense of exhaustion. It was almost midnight, and she needed sleep. It was too late to go all the way home, so she checked the dorm availability, reserved one, got her access code, walked across campus and into HomeTown. When she closed the door to her room, she felt like a fool for not taking advantage of the dorms sooner. The room was immaculate, awash in silver fixtures and blond woods, the floors warm from radiant heat, the sheets and pillowcases so white and crisp they crackled when touched. The mattress, explained a card next to the bed, was organic, made not with springs or foam but instead a new […]

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