“Apple is to create a spectacular new London headquarters at Battersea Power Station in a massive coup for the developers behind the £9 billion project,” Jonathan Prynn reports for The Evening Standard. “The iPhone and iPad maker will move 1,400 staff from eight sites around the capital into what it calls ‘a new Apple campus’ at the Grade II* listed former electricity generator.”
“Its employees will occupy all six floors of office space in the brick ‘cathedral of power,’ which is being painstakingly restored after 33 years standing derelict on the banks of the Thames,” Prynn reports. “In a statement to the Standard, Apple said it was looking forward to the 2021 opening of ‘our new London campus’ as staff relocate to ‘this magnificent new development at one of the city’s best-known landmarks.’ It added: ‘This is a great opportunity to have our entire team working and collaborating in one location while supporting the renovation of a neighbourhood rich with history.'”
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“Apple’s main European HQ will remain at Cork, Ireland, where it employs 6,000 people, but the Battersea site will be one of its biggest in the world outside America,” Prynn reports. “Apple is leasing 500,000 sq ft in total, making it one of the biggest single office deals signed in London outside the City and Docklands in the past 20 years. It is expected all the firm’s ‘central function’ staff in London in areas such as finance and human resources will move to the power station. Apple has 2,530 staff in total in the capital, including about 1,100 working in its stores. It has taken enough space for 3,000 employees, giving it room to hire more as its operation grows in London.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Congrats to the UK in general and to London in particular!
Where pigs fly!
perfect.
Yep! the moment I read the headline the song “Pigs (three different ones)” popped into my head
I was inches from touching that massive floating pig during the “Momentary Lapse of Reason” tour in ’88 (I think). The show was very mellow, except for this shirtless man screaming his lungs out. After several songs, they finally hauled him away.
Hell, they may as well pay the 14 billion. More waste of money!
Based solely on the article snippet above I read this as developers of this site to pay £9 billion . Apple is then leasing the building for use. It doesn’t say that Apple is paying the £9 billion above; maybe in the full article.
Exactly. It’s a £9B project, but it’s not Apple’s project. They are simply leasing some space within. The enormous undertaking occupies 42 acres, Apple is leasing 500,000 square feet.
It is a big coup for the developers. Having Apple as a tenant lends prestige and credibility to the entire project.
The entire development of Battersea Power Station will cost the developers circa £9 billion. Apple is only leasing space in this development & they will pay the going rate per sq foot. MDN’s headline is completely misleading & incorrect.
I thought something was wrong. After all, Apple Campus 2 is ‘only’ costing around $5 billion and yet this smaller site would be double that amount. That’s crazy. These headlines are so misleading. Why would Apple be throwing away that amount of money on just a few buildings? Apparently, Apple is just going to be a major anchor for that area and not the owner which I was under the impression of by the headline.
Will the flying pig be replaced by a flying Apple logo?
Oh, but the globalist fools assured us that Brexit would be armageddon for the UK and that no one would do business there. Hmm. The “experts,” just like the ones who love all of Crooked Hillary’s stale “plans,” were wrong again.
I would be more circumspect in your predictions. Remember, Britain hasn’t even pulled out yet. The pro-Brexit leaders have all slunk into the shadows so until UK leaders figure out what to do, they will be operating under EU law for many years to come. Perhaps in a decade we’ll see revised trade treaties and the painful economic effects of Britain’s foolish secession.
Don’t you think Apple had this planned long before the Brexit vote? I strongly doubt anyone at Apple supports Brexit.
Circumspect is not in his vocabulary.
Oh you are such a misery. Why not just grasp the scalpel and save us the ill informed economic crystal balls. Fact is in technological terms the eu is performing increadingly disastrously on the world scale, it’s really a matter of whether under those circumstances you want to sit inside the defensive picket fence or be outside it. On the outside your choice is either use your new freedom to adapt to the new realities the new euro dreamers never actually envisaged, or die that little bit quicker if you dont. One thing is for sure the eu is too bureaucratic and self obsessed to adapt as much as it may protect members a little longer from the eventual effects. It’s hardly the ideal choice.
@Mike
When The UK does pull out, will the EU be frustrated?
/s
Agree wholeheartedly! It’s also important to note that Candidate Trump was IN FAVOR of Brexit, showing that he has good instincts. Candidate Clinton, on the other hand, was totally against it; showing that, with all her experience, she has learned absolutely nothing!
She can front “presidential” as much as possible but her lack of a moral compass and, thus, her inability to learn her years of experience (and countless mistakes (to be kind)) will never compare to his instincts (both business and political).
49% of Britons were against Brexit as well — are they also lacking a moral compass and unable to learn?
If it isn’t abundantly clear by now, Brexit was a sham of isolationists convincing the gullible that trade and cooperation is bad. Just as Trump is trying to do in the USA. Don’t be such a sucker. If you don’t like the club you’re in, you can:
1) reform the club rules through cooperation, or
2) live in a nation that does not cooperate with international trade.
Secession of England from the EU today would be less bloody than the secession of the Confederates from the USA in 1860, but the economic effect will be the same. Isolationist tendencies (whether due to pro-slavery policies of the US rebels or due to anti-immigration fears of the modern UK) are corrosive to prosperity. To this day the secessionist states in the USA, on average, are less economically vibrant than those who stayed in the union all along. That’s a fact. Only in the last few decades has corporate expansion pulled up the economies of the former slave states to near those of their northern counterparts, and even then only in discrete cities instead of widespread middle class small towns. Visit the deep south of the USA for yourself if you think “going it alone” is a great idea.
I was clearly over estimating your intelligence when I said you were taking crystal balls. You will be comparing it all to the fall of the Roman Empire next.
Do please share us the facts of EU performance compared to that of the UK, oh wise one. I trust the Financial Times more than you on the question of Brexit impact. https://www.ft.com/content/0260242c-370b-11e6-9a05-82a9b15a8ee7
As for historical perspective — go ahead and repeat stupid mistakes if you’re too lazy to learn from the past. Isolationism breeds economic stagnation. Always has, always will.
I will let the snide personal insult slide for now. We can discuss policy and its impact on Apple together, or you can throw insults and watch the forum readership leave. Your choice.
I like how 48.1% gets rounded up to 49.0%
Sorry for the sloppy rounding. Are you saying that 0.9% rounding error fundamentally affects the fact that the Pro-Brexit voters do _not_ have a powerful mandate?
Trumpet dead and done like the UK tech/car industry all sold out.
Not sure where you get your 49 percent against Brexit.
Of the vote cast, the score was some 52/48 percent in favour of leaving.
I’m a member of the ROSL so maybe I’m biased in favour of extended international links, as well as deepening those with Europe, rather than necessarily the EU.
Your coke head cowboy wants chaos so he can buy real estate on the cheap…
That facility was also the inspiration for the cover of Pink Floyd’s ANIMALS. I’ve been to that Battersea location many years ago. Very cool.
I’m not sure anyone in London would call the Battersea Power Station ‘stunning’, at least not in a good way. ‘Eyesore’ maybe. Hopefully, it’s being significantly renovated.
As a Brit who voted for Brexit I’m thrilled. This is great news for the U.K. and I hope this will be the first of many big company announcements. As for the rest of the beleaguered (to borrow an MDN word) European Union, you are going to be properly fu***d when we leave you.
Nice to see Giles Gilbert Scott’s iconic London landmark finally put to good use. I well remember a school trip around the station in the 70s when it was still a power station and being amazed.
=:~)
Was checking out one of his father’s great churches locally with its William Morris stain glass windows on Sunday, who also of course designed the amazing St Pancras station, while was at the Bankside Power Station (Tate Modern) for its new extension opening recently. Some amazing talent in that family that’s for sure, in styles that couldn’t be more different. A very fitting contrast to Apple’s Foster headquarters design on the other side of the pond but both equally influential in their own ways.
Equally, so glad the old girl is getting a befitting re development that Scott would be proud of as he would Bankside, I worked on proposals some 20 years ago now that came to nothing, and I wondered if it would ever get a deserved new life.
It did look ultra-retro-techy-kewl inside:
Apple is leasing the Battersea office space, not purchasing it.
If & when Brexit does cause unfavorable economic conditions for Britain in the upcoming years, you can bet your bottom dollar that Apple will pull up stakes and rent office space where it makes more economic sense — Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, ….
I see it every morning on my way into London Waterloo station. I always admire this wonderful iconic architectural landmark.
11 billion is a lot of money to house 1k to 3k employees.
Can someone explain what I am missing in this deal that makes sense? Is this a London thing or does the facility have other hidden gems? Also this sounds like a lease. Is it a 1000 year lease, why not buy it outright?
As for Apple supporting historical architecture, they have been very good at integrating into iconic buildings, as well as pushing the envelope of new design.
I hope to visit some day. Never considered it in the past, reguardless of how many times I’ve been to London.
Read the article. This is a 42-acre redevelopment, of which the office space is only a small part.
I must be missing something in the details. Are they spending $11.7B on a facility that will accommodate 3,000 employees? That’s a per employee cost of $3.9M. That seems excessive even for a company that has more cash on hand than most small countries!
How about building a really nice campus for $700M and adding the $11B to the shareholder dividend?
I think the figure is for the whole redevelopment which includes the whole area around it which was mostly old railway land where much of the new office, retail and apartment blocks are nearing completion. Effectively it is a whole new district of London around there so it’s a very large scale project with prominant architects involved. It’s going to be a prime location when all is finished.
That looks like the power station used in the first episode of the TV series, Sherlock, with Benedict Cumberbatch.
There’s a good view of it right after Sherlock accuses his brother of having a “power complex.”
It’s also featured in the episode about the “Woman woman” which featured a nude Lara Pulver.
I think we all don’t yet know the impact of Brexit in businesses in the U.K. Many HQ’s are in the process of assessing leaving Britain. The impact on Apple’s UK headquarters can’t yet be determined.
If you live in the EU (as I do, worked and lived in 7 countries) You don’t see EU “bureaucracy” you see protectionism of individual member states. The EU has tried to get the market to open up and the member states resist to protect what they have.
If you don’t live in the EU, don’t believe the press. The EU is NOT like the US, Canada or Germany. It is 27 sovereign states with common commerce and labor laws.
I can tell you that the negotiations will be quite difficult as Britain is a big customer of the EU and the EU is a big supplier of labor to the U.K.
That IS going to change, however. As long as Apple has headquarters in Ireland and Luxembourg, I don’t think there will be a problem because of Battersea but Brussels is not amused.
F*** Neil Young and F*** his records… that popped into my mind from a Steve Jobs quote after seeing this iconic Pink Floyd album coverart at the announcement from Apple.
11 billion is a lot of money. Jerry world only cost a billion.
Headline is click-bait. Apple isn’t building a billion-dollar headquarters (well, at least not ANOTHER one), just leasing space in one.
Nothing to see here people, move along.