New photos show progress, working fountain at Apple's Austin campus

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
New photos show that construction on Apple's Austin, Tex., campus project continues apace, with a number of facilities noticeably closer to completion.



AppleInsider reader Benjamin sent in several new photos showing that considerable progress has been made on the Austin campus project. Since the last update, the facility has noticeably filled out, with a couple of buildings now sporting mostly complete facades. The project is still underway, though, as can be seen from the construction equipment present in some shots.



Benjamin notes that the pond at the new campus is completely full and that the fountain on the site is now operational. The walls and fences around the front portion of the campus are complete, as are most of the sidewalks.



When complete, the Austin site will be used as the company's "Americas Operations Center." The new facility is being built in two stages. The first stage, seen in these photos, is slated to add 200,000 square feet of office space at a cost of $56 million. The second stage, scheduled to begin in 2015, will create 800,000 square feet of operating space.



The project is expected to see full completion by the end of 2021. Its total price tag: $304 million in construction costs.

The bottom 10 percent of workers at the facility will reportedly receive an average yearly salary of $35,000, with contractors receiving a minimum wage of $11 per hour. The new campus will accommodate some 3,600 new jobs in the area, more than doubling Apple's current Austin workforce.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 17
    citycity Posts: 522member

    Very generic! I can't wait for the bell to ring, so I can go home and watch TV (and do my homework).

  • Reply 2 of 17
    welshdogwelshdog Posts: 1,897member
    I guess you can call that a fountain. It's actually in the middle of a runoff detention pond that would normally be dry. We have had significant rain in the last couple of weeks so it has some water in it at this moment. I think they aerate them to prevent algae growth while the water slowly drains out.
  • Reply 3 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by WelshDog View Post



    I guess you can call that a fountain. It's actually in the middle of a runoff detention pond that would normally be dry. We have had significant rain in the last couple of weeks so it has some water in it at this moment. I think they aerate them to prevent algae growth while the water slowly drains out.

     

    I live three miles from the Apple campus- we have seen some strong storms in the past three weeks, including some rain last night when the cold front came through, but yes, it will be dry soon. The fountain at the front of the campus has been dry for a couple of years.

  • Reply 4 of 17
    akqiesakqies Posts: 768member
    Anyone know what is actually meant, specifically, by "America's Operations Center"?
  • Reply 5 of 17
    Apple seems like it's just starting to grow as a company after being around all those past years. I sure hope they'll have some spectacular projects going forward. Truthfully, it doesn't seem to be a doomed company from the standpoint of new construction of employee facilities.
  • Reply 6 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by akqies View Post



    Anyone know what is actually meant, specifically, by "America's Operations Center"?

     

    NSA and DHS are about to begin winding down their domestic efforts, to be followed shortly by TSA. And if the CIA doesn't show material improvements, it will be next. AT&T and Verizon are being closely cooperative.

     

    Cheers

  • Reply 7 of 17
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    I think us Australians should get together in a do-gooder group to whine about the "slave labour" on a pitiful $11 an hour.

    Maybe we could mount some sort of rescue group and perform a monologue.

    /s
  • Reply 8 of 17
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    I live three miles from the Apple campus

    Fitting username
  • Reply 9 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by city View Post

     

    Very generic! I can't wait for the bell to ring, so I can go home and watch TV (and do my homework).


     

    Yeah, the architecture is pretty awful. Generic suburban sprawl office park. 

  • Reply 10 of 17
    zabazaba Posts: 226member
    Looks like a water pump, or it's a really crappy fountain, for really crappy generic office buildings.
  • Reply 11 of 17
    @hill60

    It is not the hourly rate that matters. It is the buying capacity of that money. As in how many hours does a person have to work to pay the rent, get food etc.

    Beyond that it only bites when you shift countries, tourists for example. That $11 is sorta going to get you $13 or so in Australia. Now you are in a right pickle cause the sandwich maker across the counter earns $20 to get out of bed and your sandwich is going to cost you an hour, when back home it would have been half the price.

    I'm sure Apple is paying the lowest 10% the lowest they can while still retaining a quality level of staff. But they will probably be buying houses and cars.
  • Reply 12 of 17
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Compare this to the Spaceship; possibly the nicest/coolest corporate building that has/will ever be built.
  • Reply 13 of 17
    dbtincdbtinc Posts: 134member
    It's an aeration pump you dolts and by the way, I thought Soviet-era architecture was dead. Apparently not.
  • Reply 14 of 17
    irelandireland Posts: 17,798member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by dbtinc View Post



    It's an aeration pump you dolts and by the way.

     

    lol

  • Reply 15 of 17
    zoetmbzoetmb Posts: 2,654member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by DoctorGonzo View Post

     

     

    Yeah, the architecture is pretty awful. Generic suburban sprawl office park. 


     

    And I have to wonder why, especially if those buildings were built from scratch.    Nice design doesn't necessarily cost much more money than ugly design and Apple is so into the design of everything, you have to wonder how this happened.   I can understand it if the buildings were already there and being repurposed, but I find it very surprising.    

  • Reply 16 of 17
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by zoetmb View Post

     

     

    And I have to wonder why, especially if those buildings were built from scratch.    Nice design doesn't necessarily cost much more money than ugly design and Apple is so into the design of everything, you have to wonder how this happened.   I can understand it if the buildings were already there and being repurposed, but I find it very surprising.    


     

    I can only guess, but it's probably a number of different factors. 

     

    First, it's not the showpiece Apple HQ. It's just a branch office. It doesn't necessarily need to make a statement. 

     

    Second, it's in a sprawling city where cookie-cutter office architecture is easy to find. It fits with what you'd expect from a community following that kind of development pattern. If the standards are low to begin with, then future developments are likely follow the established pattern. I'm guessing that's what happened here. 

     

    Overall, it's just so effortless and uninspiring. As you said, they wouldn't have had to drop a metric ton of cash to make it a bit nicer and less by-the-numbers, but that clearly didn't happen. This kind of development may be what we've grown to expect, but it's still positively mediocre. 

  • Reply 17 of 17

    hi everyone i love this site and i have visited this great website on fixed interval of time my maximum problem are solved from here. from their i have make a new website for content writing please visit.

    [url=http://www.technobooster.tk] Article blogs content writing[/url] 

Sign In or Register to comment.