Apple chief Steve Jobs appeared before the Cupertino City Council Tuesday night to outline plans for a "spaceship"-like campus that will house 12,000 employees.
Apple has "grown like a weed," Jobs told the council. The current headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop holds between 2,600 and 2,800 people, but Apple has almost 12,000 people scattered throughout the city in rented buildings.
"It's clear that we need to build a new campus," Jobs said. "We're just out of space."
In November 2010, Apple purchased a 98-acre parcel of land formerly owned by HP. That, combined with another 50-acre purchase in 2006, made it the largest landowner in Cupertino. Jobs said Tuesday that the HP land had special significance for him because he worked a summer job at the tech company during his teenage years.
As a result, Apple plans to build a 3.1 million square foot, circular structure on the old HP land. Apple will retain its current Infinite Loop campus, but put employees who are currently scattered throughout Cupertino in the new building. Jobs said he hopes to break ground next year and move in by 2015.
As for the building itself, Jobs said that glancing at current plans for the structure, it "looks a little like a spaceship landed." Indeed, the new Apple building is a four-story, circular building with a courtyard in the middle.
Jobs said Apple will put most of the parking underground so that 80 percent of the campus is landscaping. The company has hired a "senior arborist from Stanford" to help choose trees that will thrive in the region, a plan that will likely include an apricot orchard, he said. At this point, there are about 3,700 trees on the property, which Apple wants to double.
The plans also call for an energy center. "We have to have backup power," Jobs said. As a result, that energy center will be Apple's primary source of power, generated by natural gas, and the city's electrical grid will be used as backup.
The campus will also include a fitness center, R&D facilities, a cafe that can hold up to 3,000 people, and an auditorium that will likely be the site of future Apple events.
When asked how Cupertino residents might benefit from the new campus, Jobs pointed to the taxes the company pays, as well as the jobs it provides.
Most of the city council members (and meeting attendees) appeared to be in awe of Jobs; he received applause and cheers when introduced. Council members joked about Apple providing the city with free Wi-Fi (Jobs said he'd happily provide Wi-Fi in exchange for no taxes), and requested an Apple Store in Cupertino ("There just isn't the traffic," Jobs said).
For his full presentation, see the video below.
Jobs' appearance comes just one day after he was in San Francisco for a keynote address at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), where he rolled out a preview of iOS 5 and iCloud and gave a more detailed rundown of Lion OS X.