Thanks for this link. The article makes a lot of sense to me. I think there may be some truth to the speculation that local developers were waiting on Amazon to see if they needed to ask for height increases and I’m sure that was true across the final 20. I, for one, am glad it’s all over and hope we get the news, good or bad, from Apple in the near future.
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I am relieved Amazon is over and grateful that this forum can continue to debate the future of the very Raleigh we’ve long anticipated and shown such passion for.
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I think that you’re referring to Amazon?
Although I hope that it’s not too much longer before Apple announces their intention. 
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Yeah wait what? I must of missed this?
Please disregard that post! I posted it by accident, and with the new system, couldn’t figure out how to delete it!
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Do you know something we don’t but are afraid to share for fear that big brother is watching? Lol
I wish! I am definitely guilty of serious wishful thinking! I was reviewing past Apple articles in the media, and I thought for a crazy moment that I found a brand new Apple article. But no. I must be relegated to the same purgatory as Raleigh TechWire - speaking too soon about something that may or may not happen.
As a point of minor interest, my error originated in a WRAL news item this morning: Housing market analyst: Triangle is 'flattening out' :: WRAL.com The article discusses the “flattening real estate market” in Raleigh, and then embeds a link to an [old June] article stating that Apple will change that real estate situation very quickly.
It’s been deleted…
Welp
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Wow. Assuming that was the same project we competed for that is hugely disappointing. From all indications Raleigh had this in the bag and lost it. We need to find out what happened and people need to be held accountable.
Or we were just used so Apple could squeeze better incentives out of Texas.
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Congratulations to Austin TX! 
Way to go North Carolina’s GOP legislature!! North Carolina is now considered more backwards conservative than Texas!! This was a ‘done deal’ by most accounts and then you started your stupid 'voter suppression…uh, I mean ‘voter ID’ nonsense all over again…Congratulations!!! You have screwed Raleigh and North Carolina out of a MAJOR economic expansion. The Chief Operating Officer for Apple attended Sanderson HS, NC State and Duke and you found a way to screw up what effectively should have been a slam dunk…
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Yeah, I’m probably one of the most left-wing people on this site and I’m not convinced by this way of thinking. Texas ain’t exactly a stronghold for progressives. This probably came down to cold hard cash in some way or another.
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Or by things like this https://www.wraltechwire.com/2018/12/12/half-of-north-carolina-employers-facing-difficulty-in-hiring-study-finds/
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We will find out soon but I doubt Austin had more incentives on this one than us. It indeed looks like Apple (similar to Amazon) choose at the end the better cultural fit… As much as Apple wanted to make this happen here our legislation threw them both carrot and stick
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We are kidding ourselves if we don’t think the legislature was a major problem. I know several folks who were involved in early negotiations and when everything went quiet, I was told because they were concerned about NC’s legislative shenanigans…then came the constitutional rights to 'hunt & fish… voter ID, and other stupid amendments"
Jeff Williams is #2 at the company… Look at his background: How could we lose with this deal!!! Plus Tim Cook is a Duke grad!!! Neither went to Texas
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Lol. People speculating on the reasons for a $1B decision by one of the most iconic global tech companies in the world. I’m sure there was a data-rich analysis with weighted scales for dozens if not hundreds of factors that guided the decision process. I’m sure politics, incentives, demographics, infrastructure, work force, and plenty of other areas of consideration made up data in the analysis. So yes, it’s a little bit of everything.
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Data guided them towards NC (and NOVA) politics turned them away at the end.
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So some people here are apparently advocating that the government of North Carolina should be aligning it’s political policies to that of Apple just so that we can get their corporate office. Maybe Apple chose not to come because of the GOP, but the people of North Carolina elected them to run our state as they saw best. If we lose a few businesses along the way then that is okay by me as I believe that there are many more companies coming here to do business in North Carolina.
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