“The whole building takes your breath away,” said Williams.
Nike’s near-20-year partnership with tennis legend Serena Williams has seen much of her historic rise to greatness, so it’s only fitting that the 1-million-square-foot building recently unveiled in her honor is the largest ever at the sportswear company’s Oregon headquarters.
An architectural feat spanning approximately the size of 140 tennis courts, Nike reported in a press release, the Serena Williams Building at the World Headquarters in Beaverton cements a childhood dream for the 23-time grand slam champion, she wrote in an Instagram post on Wednesday.
“When I was just a kid, I visited the Nike campus and I saw that athletes get buildings,” Williams wrote in the caption of a 30-second video showcasing aerial footage of the structure. “After that visit, I knew I wanted two things: to be a Nike athlete and to have a building.”
The new building houses 200,000 square feet of design labs; 140,000 square feet of showrooms and workspaces; a two-story, 140-seat theater named after Williams’ daughter, Olympia, and more, Nike reported.
Designed by Portland-based firm Skylab in collaboration with Mark Parker, Nike Inc. executive chairman and former Nike CEO, the Serena Williams building brings together Nike’s design teams for different sports and markets into one shared space, according to today!
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