“Few construction projects have garnered as much excitement as Apple’s new multi-billion dollar headquarters in Cupertino,” Sasha David reports for BuildZoom. “Also known as Apple Campus 2 and aptly nicknamed ‘The Spaceship’ for its futuristic design, the behemoth project – first announced in 2011 by Steve Jobs in what would be his last public appearance – is finally reaching its much-anticipated completion.”
“Apple already began moving its employees to the new office in April, and as the last tenant fit-outs and landscaping work are finished, it’s a good time to look back at what it actually took to build this state-of-the-art facility,” David reports. “Using BuildZoom’s Open Building Permit Repository, we’ve estimated the minimum costs for each of the 15 major structures at Apple Park and ranked them by descending value – all the way from the $427 million Spaceship to the $360,000 storage barn. Want to know how much these buildings actually cost? We break it down for you with a list of the most notable building permits.”
“The most impressive structure by far is the 2.8 million square-feet donut-shaped building with a one mile outer circumference, capacity for 12,000 employees, and 8,255 parking spaces. The aggregate value of building permits comes in at a whopping $427 million dollars, but it’s not inconceivable considering the quality of materials and the level of detail,” David reports. “Apple has gotten a lot of attention in September not only for the launch of five shiny new products, but also for the public unveiling of the newly completed auditorium where the presentation took place, [The Steve Jobs Theater]. The underground theater seats 1,000 people, and according to the $161 million building permit filed in January 2015, the total square footage is 159,382.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: And these are just the building permit tallies. The project reportedly cost in the neighborhood of $5 billion altogether.
The cost of distracting everyone from Tim Cook and Jony Ive (for years) on down cannot be calculated.
[Attribution: Apple Must. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]