Expedia Inc. EXPE, -3.08% plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the coming years to build a new headquarters in Seattle, just across the lake from its longtime home in nearby Bellevue, Wash.

Like many of its rivals, the online travel agent acknowledges fierce competition for top executives, Web developers and other technology workers. So the company plans to add perks such as new food options, gym spaces and outdoor areas with sweeping views of Puget Sound. The campus also will feature a Seattle address, a hot commodity these days as younger workers flock to the city’s center.

But unlike Amazon.com Inc., AMZN, -1.78% which is eating up several blocks of downtown real estate, Expedia chose to split the difference. Its new campus will have a suburban feel, including wide-open spaces most easily accessed by car, about a mile away from the city’s downtown skyscrapers.

The Wall Street Journal spoke with Mark Okerstrom, Expedia’s chief financial officer and the man in charge of the move, about building a modern workplace from scratch. Here are edited excerpts:

Beyond the high-rise

Question: Go into a little of the decision-making process that led you to determine it was time to move on this property.

Okerstrom: We really like the Puget Sound area and have been really happy with the Bellevue headquarters location, but ultimately we just needed more space. This amazing opportunity came up where Amgen AMGN, -0.14% was vacating its 40-acre waterfront campus, and we assessed it versus all of our other options and jumped on it.

Was there any other reason you decided to make the switch to Seattle rather than staying in your hometown?

We really wanted to create, if possible, much more of a horizontal-campus-style feel as opposed to a high-rise feel. Secondly, we have found that a lot of the top talent that we are recruiting and a lot of the folks that already are leading technologists that work at Expedia Inc. are looking to more of an urban environment and want to be closer to the downtown core. There are certainly a lot of other leading technology companies in and around the Seattle market that also have made that decision to be more central.

While close to downtown, the site is somewhat cut off from the city center on that waterfront lot. What are some of the trade-offs?

One is obviously access to the site and transportation. We’ve been working on planning shuttle arrangements, adding incentives for people to carpool or to find alternative means of transportation. Second, being close but not quite close enough to local amenities means you have to be mindful that you’ve got the amenities that employees need and that if you were a little closer to the urban center might have been available already — things like large workout facilities, restaurant and food-service options, health-care options.

What are some of the companies that you’re competing against in terms of creating an attractive workplace?

The interesting thing about the tech world is it really is a global war for talent. Here in Seattle we compete with players like Amazon, AMZN, -1.78% players like Microsoft. MSFT, -1.24% Increasingly Google GOOG, -2.37% and Facebook FB, -0.89% are building a presence here in Seattle. We also bring in a lot of people from the Bay Area and other parts of the world who are accustomed to working in tech-like campus environments like the one we’re building.

What in your mind is the ideal headquarters campus, or the best you’ve seen?

I think the Googleplex is pretty special, and what they’re planning to do is pretty special, as well.

What about the idea of the headquarters in the first place?

We’re a bit of a unique beast in that Seattle is our corporate headquarters, and our corporate staff actually is relatively small in the grand scheme of things. It’s also, though, the global headquarters for brand Expedia and the global headquarters for Egencia, our corporate-travel business. It’s also the place for our e-commerce platform team. So it isn’t just a corporate headquarters. In the grand scheme of Expedia Inc., which now has over 18,000 employees globally, the footprint we have in Seattle, which is right now just over 3,000, is a pretty small chunk.

Why have people all in the same place?

We have found that, notwithstanding the great technology and video teleconferencing that exists, there’s no substitute for getting people together in a room with a whiteboard or in a beautiful location and allowing them to just brainstorm on the art of the possible.

A question of perks

Perks are considered a hallmark of a fast-growing tech company. What do you have in mind in that area?

We will be providing enhanced food-service options, compared with our current headquarters. Not sure if we’ll go as far as some leading technology companies. Their menus are pretty amazing. But we’re going to definitely offer some attractive food options. I think the people around Expedia who love playing on our ping-pong tables would be devastated if we took those away. And then we’ve got a lot of great green space around us, so I’m sure we’ll have new fields and other spaces for people to pursue more outdoor activities on the campus.

The youngest crop of tech companies, such as Twitter TWTR, +2.03% and Uber, have put their offices in very urban downtown areas. Do you think that strategy would have made sense for Expedia?

We think that being in the city and closer to the downtown core can put companies in a strong position to attract top tech talent. But equally having an amazing location on the waterfront that is close enough to downtown will put us in a terrific position. There’s nothing like the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, and our new campus allows it to really shine.

What kinds of things is a modern tech workforce looking for in an office?

Modern tech workers want an office that puts collaboration opportunities front and center. For us, it was important to choose a campus that would let us create a collaborative, flexible workspace and would let us phase our build-out to match our growth over the coming years.

Do you think the shift toward more urban campuses will last in the coming decades?

Hard to say. But as companies of all types seek to attract the next generation of talent, and especially tech talent, the draw to urban centers is likely to continue. Urban campuses bring the cool factor that young techies like with the ability to create functional, flexible, collaborative spaces for them to thrive.