Apple on Wednesday announced Apple Park — the company’s new 175-acre campus, which features a ring-shaped 2.8 million-square-foot main building — will have its grand opening in April. Employees will begin moving in then, and it is estimated it will take around six months to move in over 12,000 employees.
Construction on the campus, including surrounding buildings and parklands, is expected to continue through the summer. Envisioned by late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs as a center for creativity and collaboration, Apple Park has transformed miles of asphalt sprawl into a haven of green space in the heart of the Santa Clara Valley.
Steve would have turned 62 this Friday, February 24. To honor his memory and his enduring influence on Apple and the world, the theater at Apple Park will be named the Steve Jobs Theater. Opening later this year, the entrance to the 1,000-seat auditorium is a 20-foot-tall glass cylinder, 165 feet in diameter, supporting a metallic carbon-fiber roof. The Steve Jobs Theater is situated atop a hill — one of the highest points within Apple Park — overlooking meadows and the main building.
“Steve’s vision for Apple stretched far beyond his time with us. He intended Apple Park to be the home of innovation for generations to come,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “The workspaces and parklands are designed to inspire our team as well as benefit the environment. We’ve achieved one of the most energy-efficient buildings in the world and the campus will run entirely on renewable energy.”
“Steve was exhilarated, and inspired, by the California landscape, by its light and its expansiveness. It was his favorite setting for thought. Apple Park captures his spirit uncannily well,” said Laurene Powell Jobs. “He would have flourished, as the people of Apple surely will, on this luminously designed campus.”
“Steve invested so much of his energy creating and supporting vital, creative environments. We have approached the design, engineering, and making of our new campus with the same enthusiasm and design principles that characterize our products,” said Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer. “Connecting extraordinarily advanced buildings with rolling parkland creates a wonderfully open environment for people to create, collaborate and work together. We have been extremely fortunate to be able to work closely, over many years, with the remarkable architectural practice Foster + Partners.”
The Apple Park complex will also include a visitors center, complete with an Apple Store and a cafe open to the public. The facilities will also include a 100,000-square-foot fitness center for Apple employees, secure research and development facilities and the Steve Jobs Theater. The parklands offer two miles of walking and running paths for employees, plus an orchard, meadow, and pond within the ring’s interior grounds.
The Apple Park complex includes grassy fields, and over 9,000 native and drought-resistant trees, and is powered by 100% renewable energy. With 17 megawatts of rooftop solar, Apple Park will run one of the largest on-site solar energy installations in the world.
