Apple’s proposed campus.
(Credit:
Apple)
Steve Jobs’ final legacy at Apple has cleared one more hurtle on its
road to fruition. The Cupertino, Calif., planning commission on
Wednesday night approved Apple’s plans for its marquee new headquarters.
On Tuesday, the company made one last plea to the community at a
public discussion, and Wednesday’s recommendation paves the way for a
vote by the Cupertino city council on October 15 and a final vote on May
19.
The new campus, which will supplement and not replace Apple’s
current digs at 1 Infinite Loop, was Jobs’ pet project. Months before he
died, he paid a visit
to the Cupertino city council to appeal for the ring-shaped,
four-story, 2.8 million square foot, “spaceship”-looking building that
would be built on land that formerly occupied by Hewlett Packard’s
campus.
The scope of the project has ballooned since Jobs first introduced it
to the city council in mid-2011. Originally slated to accommodate 6,000
employees, the plans now designate space for up to 14,000 employees.
The proposed structures include an auditorium for product unveilings, a
four-story parking garage, and a fitness center. World famous UK-based
architecture firm Foster + Partners is leading the project design, and
the price tag will reportedly be close to $5 billion.
Apple’s ‘spaceship’-like campus reboot (images)
Similar to the high-end materials and designs used in its retail
stores, Apple’s campus reboot will feature many lavish touches,
including towering panes of curved glass to outline the building,
ceilings of polished concrete, and stone-infused floors more common in
“museums and high-end residencies,” rather than corporate offices, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.
A few tidbits from Wednesday’s meeting: Just like any other
Apple presentation, this one came with a slickly-produced video. Dan
Whisenhunt, the company’s director of real estate and facilities,
introduced a video featuring lead architect Norman Foster and others in
charge of the site’s development. One gem from the film is that the
site’s now infamous O-shaped structure was not the original vision. “It
really grew into that born out of an intensive process,” said Foster in
the video. The plans were also inspired by Stanford’s campus.
The development is to be completed in two
phases. The first is estimated to take 32 months, or a little less than
three years. Phase two will start soon after, though there is no
timeline for completion. The plans also include a 600-seat restaurant
with four-story glass sliding doors. Fruit from the orchards onsite are
to be used at the dining facilities onsite.
The project has had its share of setbacks. In June, the city released a massive environmental impact review
that brought up fine-tooth points that Apple would have to respond to
and mitigate, including issues related to altered geology and air
quality. Apple, for its part, has vowed
to plant 6,200 trees on the site, after it removes some 3,620 trees to
make room for construction. Residents have also been wary of the traffic
problems it would bring to the area. Indeed, much of the deliberation
Wednesday night was about safety and congestion coming out of the
campus, and whether a main road should have three lanes or two as
drivers make a left turn. (The commission said it was in favor of
three.)
But despite some of the pushback, there has been overall support
for the project from the city, unwilling to lose out on the taxes that
Apple pays to Cupertino every year, plus $35 million in one-time fees
for the building project. Shortly after the project was first pitched,
former Cupertino Mayor Gilbert Wong even went so far as to say there was “no chance we’re saying no” to the project getting under way.
The company has also made several tweaks to its plans to address concerns related to the project. Whisenhunt said the slated target for move-in is in 2016.
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