Even though Yahoo has been cutting costs and jobs over the past few years and losing some of its hold on the Internet search market to Google and Microsoft, it looks like they're moving forward with a plan to develop a massive campus in Santa Clara.
The development would include about 3 million square feet of office space in 13 six-story buildings and could house up to 12,000 workers -- big enough for all of the company's 13,000+ total work force.
It raises questions about whether they are planning to relocate their headquarters from nearby Sunnyvale. A company spokeswoman didn't exactly deny that speculation, telling the Mercury News that she would not get into details about it.
"We're going through this development process," Dana Lengkeek told the paper, "and we can't really say at this point we're going to do X,Y or Z because that might impact the approval process."
The draft report says a key purpose of the project is to "consolidate Yahoo's existing leased office/R&D space and provide a campus in the City of Santa Clara, to meet future growth needs," according to the paper. It could be the largest single real estate development in Santa Clara's history, city planning director Kevin Riley said.
Sunnyvale spokesman John Pilger told the paper they don't want to see Yahoo take its business to another city and reminds everyone that moving the company's headquarters would be no small task.
"Moving a headquarters is a major undertaking." Pilger told the paper. "It's not just a matter of moving desks over there."
The new Yahoo megaplex would rival in size to Google's Mountain View headquarters, which has about 7,000 more employees worldwide.
The purchase price for the chunk of land, which Yahoo bought in 2006, was not disclosed.
