February Apple Park drone footage shows completed R&D facility, near-final solar installations

With the move-in date fast approaching, a new video has been published showing the advances that the construction teams have made on the newly christened Apple Park headquarters and Steve Jobs Theater in the last month.

The most recent video mostly highlights the naming scheme that Apple has adorned the campus. Overall, the solar panel installation is mostly finished, with the vast arrays on the garage done, and the main building near-complete.

Apple's satellite research and development facility structure is complete, and a great deal of progress has been made on other peripheral buildings as well. With the abatement of the rains, landscaping has made great progress, with a copse of drought-resistant trees arrayed in the center of the main building.

On Feb. 22, Apple officially named the "spaceship" campus under construction. The entire facility is known henceforth as "Apple Park," with the 20-foot tall and 165 foot in diameter glass auditorium called the "Steve Jobs Theater."

Much of the Apple Park was conceived by Jobs, who made the project one of his last efforts. One of his last public appearances involved pitching the idea to the Cupertino City Council.

An environmentally-friendly design was paramount to Jobs's vision, and Apple's related Phase 2 project adds additional workspace adjacent to the main headquarters, and includes a renewable energy-powered small data center.

The employee migration to the new facility will take over six months to complete, and will start in April.

A new micro-grid installed on the campus is reportedly capable of delivering 17 megawatts of power from solar alone, and handling about 75 percent of the facility's power requirements. The solar installation is supplemented by Bloom Energy-provided fuel cells, similar to those installed at the North Carolina data center.