Initial budget estimate for Apple’s mega spaceship campus was estimated at $3 billion which is a huge budget as such, but recent reports suggest Apple to have shot the budget up by 66% to a whooping $5 billion current estimate for its project which is almost 30% higher than the World Trade Center complex currently being build at New York. Apple’s move seems to be irking the investors who are already worried about Apple’s continuously collapsing stock. The spaceship campus, Apple’s late CEO Steve Job’s dream project, was presented to the Cupertino City Council back in June 2011 which was Steve Job’s last public appearance. The build will be built in a 176 acre land area and will have a floor space of 2.8 million square feet accommodating 12,000 employees.
Apple would be adding a stretch of 6,000 trees that would hide nearly all the roads, most of the trees would be from various parts of the world including exotic and rare species. Apple is planning to accommodate all of parking space underground the mega structure and make sure that the whole campus will be covered in green.
One of the reasons for the delay, according to three of the people who have spoken to Apple personnel about the project, is that the company is working with lead architect Foster + Partners to shave $1 billion from the budget before proceeding with the project.
The campus, which is said to be sporting 700,000 square feet of solar panel, which is enough to power 4000 homes, will still fall short to power up the whole campus and Apple seems to be looking for alternative sources of green energy as well. There are many other complications involved, including importing curved glass panels from Germany as the whole building does not use straight glass panels anywhere. The project is currently scheduled to be delayed by an year and is expected to be completed by 2016 after which Apple will be moving into it.