After agreeing to increase the amount of taxes it pays to the council, Apple’s plans to build a new futuristic ‘spaceship’ campus has been approved Cupertino City.
The news comes just over two years after Steve Jobs personally pitched the project to the City Council.
Apple will be clearing 176 acres of land, including thousands of trees and 26 current buildings, to make way for the ‘spaceship’ – a 2.8-million-square-foot circular headquarters with four floors and an exterior almost entirely of curved glass.
The spaceship will house almost 14,200 employees, nearly three times the number previously working on the site.
The increase in tax is actually a reduction in the size of a sales tax rebate Cupertino City gives Apple each year. Last year the city refunded around 50 per cent of the sales taxes it received from Apple-related purchases back to the firm. From now on it will only refund 35 per cent.
Check out some of the rendered images of Apple’s new spaceship campus below: