Apple expanding Austin campus by 80,000 square feet

Apple, which last year began planning its second Cupertino, Calif. campus, is now said to be extending its expansion efforts down south, where it plans to erect a 80,000-square-foot building at its campus in Austin, Texas.

Citing real estate sources, statesman.com reports that the ground-breaking on the new two-story building at 12565 Riata Vista Circle will probably take place this summer, pending a city permit.

The Austin-based publication also reports that Apple has renewed the lease it has on 275,000 square feet of office space in the three buildings at CarrAmerica Realty Corp.'s Riata Crossing, near U.S. 183 and Oak Knoll Drive.

Expanding at a staggering pace for the past several years, the electronics maker has been gobbling up any real estate it can find, cramming employees into overflow buildings on the outskirts of both its primary campuses.

In Austin, the company was forced to lease about 40,000 square feet for support service personnel in nearby Riata Corporate Park. It plans to eventually move those operations to the new building at Riata Crossing, according to statesman.com.

Out West in Cupertino, Apple has watched it daily operations spread to mind-boggling 30 locations in addition to its headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop.

"We've rented every scrap of building we could find in Cupertino," Apple chief executive Steve Jobs said during a Cupertino city council meeting last year.

In dire need of a more amicable solution, the company went out and acquired 9 separate properties located next to each other about a mile from its present headquarters. Over the next three to four years, it plans to raze all existing buildings on the properties and construct a second Cupertino campus, sprawling some 50 acres.

"We're pretty thrilled," Jobs told the city council at the time. "Since we're your largest taxpayer, I thought you might be happy for us."

The new Cupertino campus should accommodate 3,000 to 3,500 employees and will cost an estimated $500 million.