Apple quietly explores Northern VA as a potential site for 20K workers

Tech giant Apple has discreetly looked into opening a campus for 20,000 employees, according to a recent report by The Washington Post. The consideration comes eight months after Amazon picked three local jurisdictions in the area as part of its search for a North American headquarters outside of Seattle.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northram’s economic officials proposed a number of sites for the project after Apple representatives announced it was looking for 4 million square feet of office space to accommodate 20,000 jobs, according to sources familiar with the discussions.
The space Apple is reportedly looking for is about half of what Amazon wants for its second headquarters. According to The Washington Post, Northam’s staff proposed office buildings and development sites in Crystal City, privately owned Loudon County land near the Center for Innovative Technology and the Scotts Run development in Tysons as potential sites for its new campus. Another state official said numerous spots in Alexandria had been proposed, too.
When Amazon narrowed its search down to 20 jurisdictions, Washington, DC, northern Virginia and nearby Montgomery County all made the cut. Some states offered as much as $7 billion in subsidies. Meanwhile, some residents expressed concerns about the impact the company’s presence would have on traffic, housing prices and inequality.
Apple has made its search more private than Amazon did as chief executive Tim Cook stated in a recent interview, “we’re not doing a beauty contest kind of thing.”
“From our point of view, we didn’t want to create this contest, because I think what comes out of that is you wind up putting people through a ton of work to select one, so that is a case where you have a winner and a lot of losers. I don’t like that,” Cook said.
Apple stated earlier this year it planned to spend $30 billion on new facilities and hire 20,000 people in the United States during the next five years, and a majority of the growth would happen at a new location aside from its two biggest hubs—California and Texas.
However, Apple spokesmen have declined to comments on whether northern Virginia is in the running to be campus location, and company representatives have not provided much information about the search to developers or officials.
“They are much more secretive about their process,” one real estate executive said.