Facebook is reportedly planning a major expansion of its European headquarters in Ireland. The operation currently employs over 200 people.
According to a report on Bloomberg Facebook is planning to move from its current operation in Dublin’s Dockland basin to a new 120,000 sq ft office location which it will lease for five years.
Citing three people familiar with the plans who did not wish to be named, Facebook is considering the former Bank of Ireland headquarters building and two office blocks in the south Docklands area.
The report seems to have been spurred on by a report on Dublin city’s office market by Jones Lang LaSalle which said Facebook has “demand” for office space in the city.
Facebook’s Dublin offices are responsible for all of the social network’s operations outside the US.
The social networking giant, which counts over 800m users worldwide, is expected to IPO between March and May this year.
Dublin is rapidly garnering a reputation as the ‘internet capital of Europe’ due to the presence of significant operations of major online giants including Google, Amazon, Yahoo!, Facebook, Microsoft and most recently Twitter.
Google, for example, came to Ireland in 2004 with the intention of creating 300 jobs – today it employs more than 2,000.
Twitter, which announced plans to locate its international headquarters in the city in September, is also understood to be ramping up its data centre activity in Dublin by up to one third.
