Facebook is bringing its sense of community from the Internet to the streets of the Bay Area.
The social network behemoth has teamed up with real estate developer St. Anton Partners to build a 630,000-square-foot luxury housing complex equipped with all the perks of a small, pedestrian-friendly town.
The compound, named Anton Melo, is walking distance from Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters and its new West Campus, which is in the heart of Silicon Valley. According to an October 2 press release, Anton Menlo will be “…the City’s first significant new apartment building in over 20 years.”
In addition to 394 housing units, the $120 million dollar complex will be more of a mini-town, with restaurants, a bike repair shop, yoga studio, sports bar, doctor’s office and a resort-inspired pool, spa and cabana area.
Related: Facebook’s Frank Gehry-Designed West Campus To Include Rooftop Park
The facility is seemingly built for young professionals; as the press release reveals there will be doggy daycare, but no childcare, and a “grab and go” convenience store, but no market.
On Twitter, people have been calling the housing endeavor “Zuckland.” While many tweets provide favorable opinions of the project, others take a more skeptical tone.
As Mashable.com notes, “The complex has already been nicknamed ‘Zuckland’ and ‘Facebookville’ and likened to the company towns of the early 20th Century in which workers were little more than indentured servants to their employers.”
To read more about experts’ opinions regarding pros and cons of Anton Melo, read this Wall Street Journal article.
Construction for the project will begin this month, and continue for two years.
