Apple Inc. Doubles Presence in Austin with $304 Million Campus

By Camelia Bulea, Associate Editor

Apple Inc. has announced the building of a new $304 million campus and a subsequent doubling of the number of employees it has in Austin, adding another 3,600 jobs on top of an existing 3,500, according to Gov. Rick Perry.

The state offered Apple $21 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF) over 10 years in exchange for the company’s commitment to create new jobs in Texas, as reported by CoStar Group. The new staff will expand customer support, sales and accounting functions for the region.

The Austin Business Journal reports that Apple is considering a new location for the campus instead of expanding the existing one, although it is unclear where this new location would be. The news comes after Apple unveiled the iPad HD and announced a recent acquisition of 160 acres of land near Prineville, Ore. for a data facility.  Additionally, plans for a 3.1 million-square-foot “mothership” campus in Cupertino are also in the works, according to WebProNews.com.

“Our operations in Austin have grown dramatically over the past decade, from less than 1,000 in 2004 to more than 3,500 today,” Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said in an interview with HuffPost Tech.

The news presents another example of how Texas has outbid other states – Arizona in this case – in big site selections. Since 2003, Texas has handed out over $443 million in incentives to lure specific businesses, according to the Austin Business Journal. In return, the incentives have brought more than $15.4 billion in capital investment and 62,000 new jobs to the state.

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Photo credits: www.apple.com/retail/thedomain/