14 DAY TRIAL // With Windows Vista out of the way since January 30 2007, and with little word on SP1 or Windows Seven, Microsoft can now focus on more important lines of business, such as building the second largest underground garage in the western hemisphere. Microsoft's massive parking garage structure is well under way, but only the digging will take until October 2007, about the same time that Apple's Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard operating system is scheduled for availability. The new construction project in Redmond is an integer part of the company's plans to expand its campus by no less than one third.
Part of a project costing Microsoft no less than $750 million dollars - extremely cheap in comparison with the best $6 billion Bill Gates spent on Windows Vista - the monster garage is designed to house in excess of 5,000 cars, revealed Microsoft Development Manager, Terry Bendrick, as cited by King5. The immense parking structure will be four stories deep, and will occupy no less than 10 acres on the Redmond campus, stretching for the length of four football fields and the width of one and a half. "If you plunked it in downtown Seattle it would be two city blocks by three city blocks," Bendrick explained.
Just the soil removal for the monster underground parking structure will take several months. But in the end, 864,000 cubic yards of earth will be dug up from Redmond according to Tom Dean, Senior Project Engineer with GLY Construction. However, no scars of the monster garage will make it to the surface. Microsoft plans to place a plaza, green areas and buildings on top of the parking structure to create a new center of gravity for the Redmond campus. The full project, including the monster garage, is scheduled to be finished later in 2008.