The nightly newscast on KING/5 TV here in Seattle is abuzz over the gigantic underground parking garage slated for the west side of Microsoft's Redmond campus. The technical word, I believe, is ginormous: Four stories deep, four football fields long and 1.5 football fields wide, with room for nearly 5,000 cars.

That collective groan you just heard came from the Microsoft employees already enjoying the nightly standstill on state Route 520.

At any rate, the garage has actually been planned all along as part of the massive campus expansion first announced by Microsoft in early 2005. The news is that the excavation project has begun. The digging is expected to conclude in October, and the garage is due to open next year.

There will be new office buildings around the garage, but the space above it will be occupied by a plaza, commons building, green space and other elements designed to turn the area into a focal point of the campus, says Lou Gellos, a Microsoft spokesman. If you're familiar with the area, the site is a little bit south of Northeast 40th Street, abutting 520's west side.

KING/5 reports that the project will make Redmond the home of "the second-largest underground garage in the western hemisphere," but I haven't yet been able to confirm that for myself. If anyone has information that might support or debunk that factoid, please let me know -- if only to make sure it's accurate before it goes up on the sign leading into town.