Microsoft Moves Headquarters from Bellevue to Redmond Campus

On 26/02/1986, Microsoft officially relocated its headquarters from Bellevue, Washington, to a newly built corporate campus in nearby Redmond. The move took place just weeks before the company’s initial public offering and reflected Microsoft’s rapid expansion during the mid 1980s. The Redmond site provided significantly more office space and was designed to house growing engineering, product, and administrative teams in a single campus style environment. The new campus initially consisted of multiple low rise buildings surrounded by open space, a layout intended to support collaboration between development groups. Microsoft had outgrown its Bellevue offices as the company expanded following the success of MS-DOS, increasing partnerships with PC manufacturers, and continued development of Windows and applications software. Relocating to Redmond allowed Microsoft to consolidate employees who had been spread across several buildings and provided room for future growth. The 26/02/1986 move established Redmond, Washington, as Microsoft’s long term headquarters. The campus expanded repeatedly in the following decades, eventually growing into one of the largest corporate campuses in the technology industry and remaining the company’s central base of operations.