Neighborhood Businesses Monday, April 4th, 2011 at 9:27 am

Facebook ‘Likes’ the Westside

Just months after Google leased a building in Venice, Facebook has signed a letter of intent to lease several thousand square feet in an office complex in Playa Vista.

The lease is at the recently completed four-building Tishman Speyer complex, home to USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies. Facebook employs about 2,000 people, nearly two-thirds in the Bay Area, and plans to hire more.

The Westside and Santa Monica have recently been nicknamed “Silicon Beach” with the growing popularity amongst tech companies. In January, Google leased a 100,000-square-foot office in Venice that includes the Frank Gehry’s iconic Binoculars Building.