Apple's new Austin campus won by $41M in incentives

Williamson County commissioners in Texas voted 5 to 0 on Tuesday to approve tax-funded handouts to Apple as it works to establish its second, $1 billion campus in north Austin.

The incentives are worth up to $16 million over the course of a 15-year term, the Austin American-Statesman reported on Tuesday. That's on top of another $25 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund.

The commissioners took just 30 minutes to approve the new measure. Apple's senior director of Americas operations, Tony Ross, spoke in front of the group, claiming that Texas is "absolutely essential" to the company.

"It felt totally natural that we'd continue to grow here in the Lone Star state," he added. "We are so excited that Williamson County will soon become an important part of our story."

Apple has had some form of presence in Austin since 1992, but several years ago it established a major campus on West Parmer Lane and currently employs about 6,200 people in the city. Much of its non-retail workforce is dedicated to operations work and AppleCare.

The upcoming campus could add as many as 5,000 jobs in the long term, and make Apple the single biggest private employer within Austin, even though Dell and Amazon's Whole Foods have their global headquarters in the area.

AppleInsider recently visited the site of Apple's future campus, about mile from the existing one. So far no real construction work has begun, but we'll be checking in regularly as it progresses.

27 Comments

SpamSandwich 20 Years · 32917 comments

About 6 years ago

Meanwhile, in California they’re chasing businesses out of the state.

urashid 7 Years · 128 comments

Kudos to Williamson County commissioners but is $16 million dollars over 15 years really an incensitve for Apple? It seems to me that the money will be a lot more meaningful to the residents of the county. Or is it just to show good faith / commitment?

StrangeDays 9 Years · 13040 comments

SpamSandwich said:

Meanwhile, in California they’re chasing businesses out of the state.

“No one goes there anyone, it’s too crowded...”

I think CA will be fine. Silicon Valley, Hollywood, coastal living, beautiful wilderness, and good weather seem to be pretty popular with people. I don’t see these things becoming less popular.

6 Likes · 0 Dislikes

MplsP 9 Years · 4104 comments

Yeah, 'cause Apple has completely pulled out of CA, right:?

I'm not a big fan of huge government handouts to corporations, but given the size of the project, just over $1M per year is pretty modest.

2 Likes · 0 Dislikes

christopher126 17 Years · 4366 comments

urashid said:

Kudos to Williamson County commissioners but is $16 million dollars over 15 years really an incensitve for Apple? It seems to me that the money will be a lot more meaningful to the residents of the county. Or is it just to show good faith / commitment?

I take your point...it seems this is the way these things work now.

The richest company in the world getting a $41 million incentive from money taken out of education, infrastructure, etc., from the good people of Williamson County. Hmmmmmm. Not cool!

For some reason Americans put shareholder's rights above all other considerations. Business are continually allowed to raid public taxpayer coffers!

*The top one tenth of 1% (.01%) now have as much assets/wealth as the bottom 90%!

Something is amiss, afoot, alas! :)

*Source: Fareed Zakaria GPS: (12/16/18)