A company connected to Apple has no intention of offloading a swath of land it’s recently acquired near Research Triangle Park.
That’s as Apple – at least right now – has no immediate plans to build on the 281-acre site, and is instead watching North Carolina’s political landscape as it expands in Texas, insiders say.
In the past two months, after news of the land sale became public, at least two sources close to the transaction confirmed that the sale was completed on behalf of Apple. What’s more, given Apple’s Austin, Texas, announcement, economic developers were told not to expect any big expansion or relocation announcement in RTP any time soon.
Apple officials in Cupertino, California, could not be reached for comment.
As North Carolina officials keep classifying Apple as an active project for the region, public records show the state – at least when it comes to the trophy prize of the $1 billion project announced in Austin - may not have been a real contender in the effort’s final months.
In November 2018, officials in Williamson County, Texas, must have known they were close to the prize. Notes scribbled onto a legal pad during a closed session and provided to Triangle Business Journal at the behest of a public records request detail the potential, possibly up to 11,000 jobs from Apple – already among the area’s largest employers.
“This would be largest campus outside of headqtrs [sic],” the notes say, detailing back and forth discussions of offering a 65 percent incentives package – “must hit goals” – they clarify.
As officials in Texas were hammering out their offer, sources say that, on Raleigh’s Jones Street, lawmakers in North Carolina, too, were hopeful. By November, they thought they were nearing a unicorn-sized announcement, as officials from Apple had visited Research Triangle Park and indicated strong interest.
But, in the closed-session boardroom in Texas, officials there knew something those in North Carolina didn’t. Under competition, the scrawl reads “competing w/ Columbus, OH.”
In the 50 pages of public records detailing Williamson County Board of Commissioners documents from May until the announcement, North Carolina isn’t mentioned once.
That’s as, sources say, officials in North Carolina were taken by surprise with Apple’s selection of Austin on Dec. 13, Apple announced an expansion of its existing north Austin campus, one that could eventually house 15,000 jobs. That same day it announced plans to add sites in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City, California – failing to mention North Carolina at all.
State officials insist the state is still in play when it comes to Apple – though they are offering no details on what, specifically, they’re trying to recruit from the computer giant. “While we’re certainly aware of the company’s Dec. 13 announcement involving expansions in other locations, including Austin, that news isn’t relevant to our case,” Commerce spokesman David Rhoades wrote in an email Jan. 14. “This remains an active recruitment project for North Carolina.”
Some have theorized that politics could have shifted Apple’s interest away from the state months before its announcement – a claim that – while supported by some sources, has been denied by some state officials. A representative from state Senate leader Phil Berger’s office said in December that the only reference he’s heard to politics standing between the state and Apple has been from reporters.
That’s as a source connected to local government affairs told TBJ that both Apple CEO Tim Cook and COO Jeff Williams had been closely following developments on Jones Street, and had been concerned about the state’s perception as discriminatory toward the LGBTQ community.
The 281-acre property that Apple acquired is in the Wake County portion of RTP and falls under the county’s land-use regulations. Under existing zoning rules, Apple could construct buildings as tall as 145 feet, or about 14 stories.
But there are other regulations governing how much of a parcel can be covered in development, which cuts down on the size of a building’s footprint.
Research Triangle Foundation CEO Scott Levitan declined to answer specific questions about what could be built on Apple’s property, but spoke generally about recent changes in development in the park.
In an email, Levitan noted that development capacity on property within RTP is often reduced because of the need to build large parking lots, but more companies are turning toward parking garages to maximize space.
“In the past, economics have argued to park in surface lots so paved area for parking has been the governing criteria for buildable capacity,” Levitan writes. “Recently, a number of expanding companies in RTP have opted to build parking decks that enable them to reduce surface parking to accommodate additional buildings. Clearly, a positive indicator for the health of RTP and the region.”
In the meantime, Apple appears content to sit on the property.
There are multiple connections between Apple and Acute Investments LLC, which purchased the land in December from the RTF and Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund.
Parker Poe lobbyist R. Bruce Thompson – registered to lobby for Apple - is listed in the deed for the sale. CLAS Information Services, which filed applications with the North Carolina Secretary of State’s Office on behalf of Acute Investments (and did not respond to a request to comment for this story), is the same California firm behind other Apple-connected entities.
Those include Apple Payments – which filed an application with the N.C. Secretary of State’s Office in 2017, and lists Apple executives’ names in its filings.