Thefacebook.com, the popular networking Web site on college campuses, has found itself a physical home in downtown Palo Alto. The Web site, which boasts two million registered users — including thousands of Stanford students — will occupy an office at 471 Emerson Street, across from Pizza My Heart.

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Nina Gonzaludo

Facebook.com recently opened an office in Palo Alto.

As more students from both Stanford and UC Berkeley were hired to work on the Web site, creator Mark Zuckerberg realized the need for a single office where everyone could work together. Currently, the core staff works in an office in Menlo Park.

“More than 60 percent of [users] come back [to Thefacebook] every day,” Zuckerberg said. “That’s a lot of traffic, and it requires a lot of computers to process all that. It requires a few people just to maintain those computers. Then there are other people needed to make new stuff, get ads, etc.”

Zuckerberg signed a one-year lease on the office and said he plans to keep the office at the Emerson location in future years, especially since the office interior has been personalized with the work of a famous graffiti artist, David Choe.

“We have some nice paintings here, so I hope to stay here for a while,” Zuckerberg said. “I like downtown Palo Alto and I like the office.”

Zuckerberg would not say how much he paid for the lease, but added that “downtown Palo Alto isn’t cheap.”

The building is a larger space than Zuckerberg and his colleagues required, so the staff has set up side offices to resemble dorm rooms. These rooms will be open to Stanford students looking to study or hang out off campus. Zuckerberg also said that “cool” grand opening plans for the office are in the works.

Thefacebook.com staff originally came to Palo Alto just for the summer but eventually decided to stay. Zuckerberg, who is currently taking a break from Harvard University, will not return to school in the fall and is considering transferring to Stanford or Berkeley.