Microsoft plans to create a big new campus in Redmond for its Entertainment and Devices Division, including its Xbox business, and if one aspect of the building design accurately reflects the company's intentions, it will include a rather unusual employee amenity: a bar.
Click for larger views of West Campus plans filed with the city.
See
this story from Thursday's paper for more on the 42-acre West Campus development plan, which will establish a new center of operations for the video-game unit and other parts of the division. Microsoft is expected to publicly detail the campus plan in the coming days. The planned four-building, 1.1 million-square-foot office complex is west of state Route 520, just north of the former Eddie Bauer headquarters -- which the plans show being renovated into a training and meeting center, with its own health-care clinic for employees. (Microsoft
acquired the Eddie Bauer building a few years back.)
Callison Architecture rendering
While looking through the building permits for the West Campus project at Redmond City Hall this week, I came across the schematic shown at the top of this post, laying out the design of one of the commons buildings at the center of the complex. It details a bar with capacity for 76 occupants, next to a room with two pool tables. City planners have been given the impression that it would, in fact, serve alcoholic beverages. However, Microsoft isn't yet discussing the West Campus development publicly, and these kinds of plans are often subject to change, so I wasn't able to confirm definitively that this is what Microsoft will actually put there.
Source
Microsoft plans Xbox campus ... with a bar?
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