Apple received a unanimous approval from the city council to move ahead with the construction of its spaceship campus in Cupertino, California. The company's late co-founder, Steve Jobs, personally spoke before the council back in 2011 about the new campus. He said that the four-story circular building would make it look "like a spaceship landed there."
The building is expected to house up to 14,200 employees, and will be surrounded by luscious green vegetation. Furthermore, the middle of the campus will also house vegetation, which is a nice touch on preserving the environment. The new campus is just across from the old one, so employees moving into the new building shouldn't have much of a problem adjusting to the surrounding area.
"Steve transformed Apple into one of the most innovative companies in the world, and we understand the responsibilities that come from carrying his legacy forward with this project," Apple's head of real estate and facilities, Dan Whisenhunt, told the council. "We've designed it with the same care and attention to detail as we do with all Apple products."
The council was all in favor of this move by Apple to build a new headquarters in the town. The company has supported Cupertino for years, which is why the council members have shown such loyalty.
"As my mom used to say, 'don't bite the hand that feeds you,'" longtime resident Carol Baker told the council. "If we don't honor Apple with this building, they'll leave. There's no reason for them to stay here and be loyal to a community that doesn't support them. But if they left, it would be a disaster for the city."
The original cost of the project was around $3 billion; however, the budget quickly jumped to $5 billion, which caused a delay as architects attempted to figure out a way to keep costs down. The monolithic curved glass windows lining the central building's perimeter, was one of the problems attributing to the higher cost.
Together with the main building, there will be secondary office buildings, a 120,000-square-foot underground auditorium and above and below parking, reconfigured public streets and bike parking.
Apple hopes to move employees into the new building by 2016.
The whole plan for this spaceship headquarters is very grand and ambitious. If Apple pulls off a great job here then the new headquarters could become a tourist attraction, which could improve Apple's consumer interest.
