Apple has leased Tech Place on 101, a 202,000-square-foot building under construction at 2509 Orchard Parkway in north San Jose, California, according to the San Jose Mercury News. The new building is located next to a large parcel of vacant land, owned by realty firm Steelwave, where up to two more office buildings could be built to accommodate around 3,000 workers.
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Apple, headquartered in nearby Cupertino, has been steadily expanding its presence in the Bay Area. In north San Jose, it owns or leases multiple properties along Orchard Parkway, between North First Street and U.S. Highway 101, including the 296,000-square-foot 101 Tech R&D building and a massive 43-acre development site approved for up to 2.8 million square feet of office space.
Apple's north San Jose campus could potentially employ up to 20,000 workers.
"They are taking this building to control that entire neighborhood," said David Vanoncini, a managing partner with Kidder Mathews, a commercial realty firm.
If all the sites were built out to their full capacity, over time, Apple potentially could employ up to 20,000 workers on the north San Jose properties.
The company also reportedly expanded into San Francisco for the first time in July, leasing a 76,000-square-foot office space in the popular South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood, and further bolstered its Bay Area presence by acquiring a 770,000-square-foot property in Sunnyvale.
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Apple now has real estate in five Bay Area cities, including Cupertino, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale. In addition to its One Infinite Loop headquarters, the iPhone maker continues development on its nearby "Campus 2" project, which remains scheduled for completion in late 2016.
Top Rated Comments
Ask the people who (barely) escaped Sendai how well that went. A good portion of SF and Silicon Valley is below the Japan tsunami's peak height. I was also in Christchurch a couple years ago to see how well those modern reinforced hotels faired (they didn't).
And I don't need a movie to believe anything: Just a week before, I actually drove over that portion of the 880 freeway that collapsed. A coworker was on the Bay Bridge when a portion of that span collapsed nearby. I was in a Silicon Valley office building where light fixtures were falling from the ceiling. I had to dive under a desk. Those were no movie special effects. People in the Bay Area died. 1% of millions of people and tens of thousands of buildings is a lot.
My mom visited Christchurch a week before the quake and got "last known photos". I experienced the 1972 CA quake which wrecked a hospital and a freeway interchange and plenty more. The Northridge quake crushed apartments and freeways which took months with extreme measures to replace.
Earthquakes can be bad. But modern buildings survive them well enough to not kill their occupants. The building may need to be replaced.
Rocketman
Not saying it wouldn't be terrible, but it's still way better than places where you have constant extreme weather (hurricanes, tornadoes, snow) yearly or employing people who are not Bay Area people (i.e. really smart, creative, quirky, ambitious, generally kind and awesome).
A 46mm Apple Watch.