Microsoft Redmond Ridge: Microsoft buys Redmond Ridge data center property for $6.2 Million

Microsoft paid nearly $6.2 million to acquire the site of the company's data center in Redmond, King County property records show.

The Redmond-based company purchased the property at 23050 NE 102nd St. from Portland-based Pacific Realty Associates on May 31. Property records show the site includes a 50,615-square-foot warehouse.

Microsoft opened the data center, which it calls "Redmond Ridge 1," in 2009 to get employees to manage their servers remotely. The facility was built about eight miles away from Microsoft's Redmond headquarters.

Microsoft and Pacific Realty Associates did not respond to request for more information.

The sale is Microsoft's latest property acquisition in Redmond ahead of the company's multibillion-dollar headquarters renovation. The upgrade which will add18 new buildings, including a dozen building replacements, and create 2.5 million square feet of additional office space to accommodate 8,000 more employees.

Microsoft bought the 715,000-square-foot Daytona Laguna office complex next to its Redmond headquarters in 2018 for nearly $250 million.

The company broke ground on its headquarters project in January. One Microsoft employee paid more than $12,000 to be the first to tear into the company's original buildings.

Microsoft initially bought the land in 1986, when it was an 88-acre patch of forest previously destined to become a shopping center. The company first developed the Redmond site into four of those star-shaped buildings surrounding a pond, named “Lake Bill” for Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. The campus has grown since then to 15 million square feet of office space across 125 buildings on 500 acres of land.