New documents obtained Monday by WRAL News indicate when construction could begin on the new Apple campus at RTP.
The new documents come from the Wake County Planning Board and detail plans for traffic and wastewater management. They reference a “build out” of some access roads coming in 2026.
WRAL TechWire editor Rick Smith says they are further proof of Apple’s commitment to the Triangle.
“Apple’s been very secretive about the project,” he said.
Since the 2021 announcement about the site, at Louis Stephens Drive north of Interstate 540, progress has been slow and updates few. The pandemic, with the shift to remote work and rising construction costs, has put other projects on hold.
“This adds certainty,” Smith said. “This adds some dates, some context to what they have in mind.”
“I think if anything it will give some comfort to folks in the region is that, unlike many of its peers, Apple is not in cost-cutting mode,” said John Boyd, whose Boyd Company has been involved in corporate site selection in RTP for decades.
“Any time we have some concrete dates around a big project such as Apple, I think it provides clarity and some more information as how we can move around in terms of infrastructure, real estate and everything that goes along with a project of that size,” said Realtor Job McBride.
With Apple employees comes real estate boom
McBride, an agent with Coldwell Banker Howard Perry and Walston, says the timeline helps developers plan for the homes needed for Apple employees.
“I think it’s going to give developers, builders and real estate agents a little bit more time to figure out where we can plan appropriately on new growth, new communities and how the roads are going to impact that,” he said.
Apple has said the campus — six buildings with a total of more than 700,000 square-feet of office space — could house more than 3,000 workers. (For context, 324,000 square feet is about twice the size of the average Walmart Supercenter.)
In June, Apple revealed new site plans for the construction of a Research Triangle Park campus on 281 acres located adjacent to Louis Stephens Drive and Little Drive in Wake County on the south end of RTP. The company has not disclosed when construction will begin or when the project would be complete.
“Over the next few years, I suspect we will see continued investment in infrastructure to get that site ready,” Boyd said.
The Apple influx to the Triangle has already begun, with thousands of workers in remote or hybrid positions and others occupying space in the former MetLife Building in Cary.
