Cupertino city chiefs bless Apple's number two campus

Driven by Apple and HP, business is booming in the two firms’ home city of Cupertino, and a grateful city council has made available near half a million square feet of office space in the city for use by the big companies there.

The city council voted 3-2 on July 21 to allocate an additional 483,053 square feet of office space, and this space is exclusively reserved for big companies in Apple’s league.

“We live in a pretty rich city,” councilwoman Dolly Sandoval told Cupertino Courier, “and I don’t mean rich as in wealthy, I mean rich with people and active companies. I want to encourage growth of these major companies.”

Apple and HP are the biggest sales tax producers and employers for the city, and reps from both firms thanked the city council for considering allocating oout more office space.

Apple’s Steve Jobs visited the council in 2006 to say the company hoped to build a second Cupertino campus. Release of this new space seems set to encourage development of that second area as Apple’s business grows.

To get a general idea as to just how much Apple’s business has grown in the last few years, why not flash back to July 16, 2003, when the company’s third quarter results revealed a net profit of $19 million on revenue of $1.545 billion.

This was the period when iPods reached their third generation build, the iTunes Music Store opened for business and Mac OS X 10.3 Panther had reached its developer preview.

July 21, 2009, and the company revealed revenue of $8.34 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.23 billion. This suggests that in revenue terms alone, Apple’s business has increased five-fold.

And while we looked to iPod 3Gs then, we’re expectant on iPhone 3GS, Apple tablets and a new range of iPods soon, coupled with the release of Snow Leopard.

With Apple now inarguably a top employer and tax payer in Cupertino, it is no surprise the companies won this extra real estate after its long lobbying for the same. "I think this council is sending a strong message that we do appreciate having Apple and HP in our city and wanting them to be here," councilman Mark Santoro said.