LinkedIn paga a Mountain View 1.6 millones de dólares por el cronograma de expansión.

The Mountain View City Council unanimously signed off on an agreement last week to give LinkedIn an extra five years to redevelop its office headquarters on the eastern edge of the city.

LinkedIn now has until February 2034 to begin constructing a pair of six-story office buildings and a parking structure at its Mountain View campus. As part of the deal, LinkedIn will pay the city an additional $1.6 million.

However, in a split 5-2 vote, the City Council diverged on how to spend the money. The council majority wanted the entire lump sum to go into the city’s affordable housing fund instead of supporting a staff recommendation to allocate $1.1 million for parkland acquisition and $500,000 for affordable housing.

Council members Chris Clark and John McAlister cast the dissenting votes at the Oct. 13 meeting.

“My preference would be to leave it flexible so that we can put it toward parkland acquisition if it makes sense, some portion of it, or affordable housing, some portion of it – or something else,” Clark said.

LinkedIn’s redevelopment plans

For the better part of a decade, LinkedIn has been wanting to redevelop a large office complex on a nearly 29-acre site at the northeast corner of East Middlefield Road and State Route 237 near the Sunnyvale border.

In 2018, the Mountain View City Council aprobada LinkedIn’s plan to demolish two of five office buildings on the site. In their place, LinkedIn proposed to construct a trio of six-story office buildings and two six-level parking structures, more than doubling the existing office space to roughly one million square feet.

Mountain View and LinkedIn entered into a seven year development agreement at the time, with the possibility of a three-year extension on the condition that at least one of the buildings be completed by 2026. LinkedIn also agreed to pay the city $350,000, with the possibility of an additional $150,000 fee if the extension option was triggered.

In 2021, LinkedIn finished constructing a six-story office building and a six-level parking structure on the site. Around that time, LinkedIn opted to extend the development agreement’s expiration date to February 2029 and paid the additional $150,000 fee.

Since then, LinkedIn has reassessed its office needs, according to LinkedIn executive Victor Sanchez. Fewer employees are coming into the office everyday as a result of changing work expectations since the pandemic, with hybrid work schedules the norm now, Sanchez said.

“It’s not sustainable to build space when it’s not needed,” he said at the council meeting.

Even so, Sanchez stressed that LinkedIn remains committed to its redevelopment plans. Earlier this year, LinkedIn anunció  it would layoff 411 employees in Mountain View, along with nearly 200 more across California. However, Sanchez noted that LinkedIn had “enough capacity” to support its current employee headcount to 2029 but not necessarily to 2034.

“With these five years, I am confident that we’ll need the space and we’ll have to build it in time, to when we need it,” he said.

City Council weighs in on LinkedIn plans

The City Council speedily approved the amended development agreement with LinkedIn, which extends the 10-year timeline to 15 years.

“​​The extension provides LinkedIn the flexibility to plan for its future growth while remaining headquartered in Mountain View,” the staff report said.

While councilmembers unanimously backed the amended agreement with LinkedIn, they split on the allocation of the $1.6 million payment. The staff report recommended the bulk – $1.1 million – go toward parkland acquisition in the East Whisman area, which is slated for high density residential growth.

However, Councilmember Lucas Ramirez argued that the entire $1.6 million should be deposited in the city’s affordable housing fund so that developers could move forward with projects that otherwise might not get off the ground.

“It’s the urgent need of the community that we have to address, and this is a very valuable source of funding that could potentially unlock a project within the next year or so,” he said.

Ramirez also noted that the city was in a good position to collect revenue from a aumento del impuesto sobre la transferencia de propiedad que  los votantes aprobaron two years ago. About a third of that revenue has been earmarked for parks and open space with a smaller portion allocated for affordable housing.

“Affordable housing is not as strong a beneficiary,” Ramirez said. “I feel that affordable housing is the highest priority and therefore merits our continued support and investment.”

The council majority backed his recommendation, allocating the $1.6 million entirely to affordable housing.

Este artículo se publicó originalmente en el Mountain View Voice . Emily Margaretten se unió al Mountain View Voice en 2023 como reportera cubriendo la actividad del Ayuntamiento.