Construction begins on Apple's new 1M-square-foot Texas campus

By Katie Marsal

Apple has started construction on a new 1-million-square-foot operations center in Austin, Texas, that will be home to 3,600 new jobs.

Preliminary on the new 39-acre campus began in the last few weeks, according to Wired. The new facility will be an expansion of Apple's existing operations center in Austin, which employs about 3,500.

Over the next decade, Apple plans to add another 3,600 jobs to Austin, making it by far the single largest job creation from one project in Austin history. In return, Apple will receive more than $30 million in tax breaks.

Phase one of the project calls for a 200,000-square-foot facility in two buildings that will cost $56 million and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2015. The second phase will include another 800,000 square feet in a number of buildings that will be finished by the end of 2021.

Apple will spend a total of $304 million on the Austin campus expansion. The project almost fell through in April when the iPhone maker ran into hiccups with local authorities in Travis County, but eventually the deal was finalized after Apple committed to an average salary of $35,000 for the bottom 10 percent of workers at the facility, and a minimum of $11-per-hour pay for contractors.

An analysis by Travis County has projected that Apple's new "Americas Operations Center" will generate $15 million in benefits for the county over the 15-year term of the contract.

Source: http://appleinsider.com/articles/12/12/19/construction-begins-on-apples-new-1m-square-foot-texas-campus

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