APPLE TO BUILD $304 MILLION CAMPUS, AND CREATE 3600 NEW JOBS IN AUSTIN!!

Colin Pope

Editor - Austin Business Journal

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Apple Inc.    will expand its Austin presence with a $304 million campus that will ultimately create 3,600 new jobs, according to an announcement today by Gov. Rick Perry.

The new campus will more than double the size of Apple’s workforce in Texas over the next 10 years. The new staff will expand customer support, sales and accounting functions for the region. In exchange for Apple’s commitment to create these new jobs in Texas, the state has offered Apple an investment of $21 million over 10 years through the Texas Enterprise Fund.

It’s unclear where Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) would locate the campus.

Instead of expanding its existing campus, Apple is considering a new location in Austin, spokeswoman Kristin Hugoet said.

“Our operations in Austin have grown dramatically over the past decade, from less than 1,000 employees in 2004 to more than 3,500 today,” she said.

Julie Huls, president of the Austin Technology Council    , said Apple’s expansion in Central Texas would cement the region’s reputation as a technology hub.

“I think it’s a game changer for the state of Texas and Austin,” she said. “It’s a scale tipper for Austin to have an A-list company like Apple.”

If all goes as planned, this would be one of the largest job creation projects in the TEF’s history, which was set up in 2003 to entice large companies to move or expand here. To date, the governor’s office reports that the TEF has doled out more than $443.4 million and closed the deal on projects generating more than 62,000 jobs and more than $15.4 billion in capital investment in Texas.