Yet another trillion-dollar tech giant is holding back on plans to develop an East Coast campus.
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Apple is delaying construction on its Research Triangle Park campus, which was set to bring 3,000 jobs to North Carolina. Shovels are still not in the ground over three years after the project was announced, the Triangle Business Journal first reported.
The project was previously set to be completed by 2026. Apple is still working with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and its Department of Commerce in the hopes of extending the timeline for the project by four years, the TBJ reported. The delay could impact the incentives that the company was to be given.
Apple confirmed the delay but added that they remain committed to the project.
“Apple has been operating in North Carolina for over two decades, and we’re deeply committed to growing our teams here,” the company told the TBJ in a statement. “In the last three years, we’ve added more than 600 people to our team in Raleigh, and we’re looking forward to developing our new campus in the coming years.”
In 2021, Apple announced a five-year plan to invest more than $430B and add 20,000 new jobs across the country. $1B of that investment was slated for the North Carolina campus.
The delay now deals a huge blow to the state’s economic development ambitions.
As part of the project’s construction, the company promised a $100M fund to support schools and community initiatives in the greater Raleigh-Durham area and further across the state, as well as another $110M in infrastructure spending to 80 North Carolina counties with the greatest need. The investments were expected to generate over $1.5B in economic benefits annually for the state.
Apple's decision follows two of its Big Tech peers, who last year halted work on their own plans for large campuses far from their West Coast headquarters.
In Atlanta, Microsoft acquired 90 acres in the Grove Park neighborhood in 2021, planning an eventual 15,000-worker campus, but halted work early last year, Bisnow first reported.
“The land is not for sale, and we still aim to set aside a quarter of the 90 acres for community needs,” a Microsoft spokesperson wrote in a statement at the time. “We intend to reengage in planning efforts when expansion is warranted.”
Amazon has paused construction of HQ2 in Northern Virginia — a 25,000-employee second headquarters project that received aggressive bids from cities across the country. Though the 2.1M SF first phase of offices, dubbed Met Park, has been completed, another 3.2M SF just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., remains on ice.
After overhiring following the onset of the pandemic, many tech companies have had to cut costs and shed employees. Nearly 100,000 employees have been laid off this year alone, according to tracker Layoffs.fyi.
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