“The” or “An”…Apples and Oranges? Sorry, I had to…
@ SilentSammy , I think WRAL is saying that NC is thinking about a counter offer with Apple using some of the Amazon incentives !
But let’s be very careful here. WRAL has been missleading before…
Also I doubt more incentives are needed. Best case scenario - if we are lucky - Apple will retain some sort of right for the site within RTP and expand there down the road when one or both of the following points are met 1) Raleigh is cooler and has more pull for young people 2) political climate is more chill and progressive
This just seems like more speculation…and ‘hoping’ than anything meaningful. ‘Officials’ can say all they want ‘we are still pursuing Apple…’ because they haven’t officially been told to ‘kiss off’ by Apple directly. But when you keep hearing ‘Apple went radio silent, etc’ over and over there’s an old adage in sales that says, ‘if they aren’t talking to you, they are talking to someone else…’ which sadly appears to be the case here.
Baffling with Jeff Williams and Tim Cook’s ties to the Raleigh area, for us to screw this one up…the GOP can run around all they want to claim ‘it’s not because of me!!’ but its hard to ignore their backwardness as the primary culprit…
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I think this is the article you were referring to? Apple’s ‘monumental deal’ goes against Triangle – for now | WRAL TechWire
It offers some interesting points, but seems pretty inconclusive.
But the Triangle as well as North Carolina shouldn’t give up hope that Apple won’t be expanding its presence in the state – at least right now.
The key words in the Apple announcement: There is “the potential for additional expansion elsewhere in the US over time.”
In fact, a source has told WRAL TechWire that Apple has continued to express very strong interest in a large piece of undeveloped land across the southern part of Research Triangle Park that stretches into Wake County.
Scott Levitan, CEO of the Research Triangle Foundation which runs RTP, would not comment about Apple’s decision.
The North Carolina Department of Commerce’s David Rhoades wouldn’t say anything other than: “We are aware of the media reports. We have nothing further to offer.”
However, no one has told any of WRAL’s reporters working on this story that Apple has said “no” to the state.
The article is trying to make the case that the previously “imminent” expansion announcement is not yet off the table. However, it seems kind of unlikely to me that Apple would announce an expansion similar to the one that was speculating to be landing here soon (before the end of the year), alongside a statement that details their expansion plans over the next 3+ years, while just about to announce another expansion location.
Maybe their sources aren’t reliable, or maybe they’re just interpreting it the wrong way. Maybe Apple is interested in that undeveloped plot of land, but maybe they won’t have any definite plans for a year or more? Or maybe Apple wants everyone here writhing in anxiety that the deal could very well slip through our fingers if we don’t pony up some portion of what was offered to Amazon, and they know that the people with the keys to the coffers want to be able to announce a big win.
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And it seems to contradict the rest of the stories on WRAL concerning Apple’s rumored expansion at the moment. The rest all seem to be pretty definitely in the camp of “we lost it, what happened?”
Something that confuses me is why Apple would even want a suburban campus in the first place. They’re a very high-tech company, very forward-thinking, and many of their stores are in urban areas. Those strike me as characteristics of a company that would want to be centrally located, so that their employees (young, techy folks that generally prefer urban areas) can take transit to work and live in dense communities. That’s what Amazon was looking for, and other major tech companies are heading in that direction too. Maybe it’s dangerous to lump Apple together with their major competitors in terms of how they view the built environment, but I just don’t understand why they choose to place their main facilities in low-density, sprawling environments. Can anyone help explain this?
I actually was referring to an interview Rick Smith did today on the WRAL noon news. As others have stated, it seemed a mixture of sources and conjecture. I quoted his exact phrase used on the interview: “Absolutely not dead” was his quote (i reran the interview to make sure).
Again, it seemed as though within the same interview he somewhat contracted himself or perhaps I just didn’t follow. Is he talking a different project, the same project? I don’t know. I can’t see how it’s the same project. since it has been announced for Austin.
Maybe some of it is trying to cover his blog’s prior reports how this was basically a done deal. Granted, if you are reporting what sources say, not sure you can blame the reporter.
Oh well… perplexing to me. I’d be far more interested if they were possibly coming downtown anyway…
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Another thing I found interesting… nearly everyone I mentioned the Apple choosing Austin over Raleigh decision to, was glad. Whether we like it or not, many of the population thinks the Triangle is getting too crowded. I don’t think it was anything against Apple, the company, rather the thought of increased traffic, higher housing prices,etc.
I hear variations of the above sentiment every day. I agree in many ways if growth just adds more and more to the sprawl. We need to grow up, not out!
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I think it’s because that is where the assumption that Apple is “just another top-tier, modern consumer tech company” fails.
Apple is also a pretty secretive company that likes to keep itself isolated from its peers -both in corporate policy, its supply chain monopoly, and its general streak of doing things its own way -temporary fads, be damned. It cares about its aesthetic on the surface as much as how it can maintain its pristine internal conditions.
It’s the brainchild of the late uber-perfectionist Steve Jobs, after all. I have several friends who worked as tech or retail support in Apple, and even they say there’s a sense of separation between Apple and everywhere else. Like have you ever noticed how it feels like you’re walking into a different kind of environment just by stepping inside an Apple Store?
If anything, becoming an urban company probably wouldn’t be a very Apple thing to do, from what I understand.
Also, friendly reminder as someone who belongs in that group of “young, techy folks that generally prefer urban areas”: we’re not a monolith. We’re not a homogeneous group of like-minded hippies. (I’m not accusing you of it, but I just wanted to point out that there’s more to learn by digging deeper to actually understand the corporate culture of these sorts of companies. The headlines are almost never an accurate snapshot of how things look and feel on the ground)
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Thank you for the insight. That definitely helped me to better understand their culture, and why they don’t pursue more urban locations.
Oh, but of course! I don’t mean to say that everyone in that generation acts the same way, but I think there is, on the whole, a distinctly more favorable approach to cities in younger people than their parents.
I did run across this article from CityLab, which delved into the topic of Apple’s suburban campuses a bit (though with a slightly negative view overall, given the source):
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/12/apple-expansion-austin-williamson-county-next-silicon-valley/578122/
For reference, the article includes this image of the proposed campus in Austin:
130 acres total, 50 left open. However, it’s located next to a highway, and is more than 12 miles from downtown Austin.
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This write up covers a trend where Silicon Valley companies are looking to get out of ‘group think’ of the Valley and grow in new areas, such as Los Angeles and Austin.
Deutsche Bank is mentioned (more as a proponent of financing these moves) but they also have their own tech center in RTP. Raleigh was also mentioned as a go-to location.
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It also highlights areas where we need to do better, notably transportation, identity and venture funding. In terms of venture funding, Durham-Chapel Hill is a top ten per capita location (but barely half of Boulder, CO and about 1/8 of the Bay area on a per capita basis.) But Raleigh doesn’t even crack the top 20.
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I think that the Durham-Chapel Hill MSA has the double advantage of being a much smaller and less diverse economic metro that’s highly weighted by 2 major universities. Couple this with the larger share of RTP being in Durham County, and it’s easy to see how it lands where it does in the data. Interestingly, it’s Raleigh’s MSA that reaps the Triangle’s financial benefits of economy with much higher household incomes in Wake County than in Durham County. It suggests what we all know; a good number of people work in Durham County but live in Wake County, yet the Triangle is still considered two metros. Whatever.
As much as the DT community would like to believe otherwise, the majority of people still choose to live in the burbs, and that’s still very true for many of those at the top of the economic food chain in the Triangle. And, as it turns out, Wake County has the both the lion’s share of available land and established suburban towns that typically draw them.
For me, this is all just slicing and dicing data sets to match any chosen narrative that one might want to create for the Triangle’s 3 points, its two MSAs, and all points among them.
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I agree with your points but I also think they strengthen my initial idea. The bulk of the Triangle is in the Raleigh MSA and the Durham MSA is skewed toward higher per capita VC funding, which means neither is really a top ten metro for VC .I wouldn’t be as concerned if say Raleigh were like top 15 and Durham top 10 and we knew Durham’s numbers were a little inflated, but Raleigh being out of the top 20 should be concerning even if they’re losing some of their economic clout to “slicing and dicing” numbers, as you said.
I’ve been thinking about Keita’s post and the linked article for a few days - in between doing other things of course.
Some of the quotes in the article sting a bit, but sometimes the truth hurts:
“Stringer said that Raleigh and the state as a whole’s biggest weakness is a lack of identity.”
“Your region suffers from a lack of cool factor. That is a hard thing to describe, but you feel it and know it when you see it.”
I don’t have the answer to our identity question, but I can’t help but think that cities looking to establish identity/brand should start by building on their triumphs. One of Raleigh’s more recent triumphs has to be the IBMA World of Bluegrass that we’ve hosted now for the last six years.
Hosting the event here has been transformational for all parties involved. I’ve been trying to think about how this experience might contribute to our identity but wasn’t getting anywhere. Then I saw this article that came out yesterday:
https://www.odwyerpr.com/story/public/11792/2018-12-19/mix-that-makes-music-festival-great.html
The strength of the festival is not that bluegrass is a super popular music genre - it’s not - or that Raleigh has an innate cool vibe (see above) rather it’s the broad range of and the unique forms of experiences that the festival and its format offer to everyone in attendance from the everyday fan to the Grammy winning musician.
I’m not suggesting that Raleigh should try to build its identity/brand around a somewhat obscure music genre that some love and some hate, but maybe we should think more about developing our experience economy. We got it right with the IBMA - are there ways we can build on that success?
What experiences do we want to be known for? What experiences can we offer that would attract the people and companies we want here?
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Love this article Brian ! Thanks for sharing !
Good point! a festival really can help shape identity and enhance popularity of a city. Now a mammoth like SXSW is many years in the making. Definitely would not hurt if Raleigh hosts some big aspiration tech gathering or in fields of arts, music. Sonar in Barcelona come to mind also or tech open air Berlin (or love parade :-))
In the Triangle, higher education is our identity and Tobacco Road or Research Triangle is the brand, IMO. Not that many metros in our class have three nationally ranked universities (including one in the top ten). That is why we are the research triangle and that is what we are known for nationally and internationally more than anything. I can almost guarantee that every student in China hopeful of going to university in the US has heard of Duke and knows it is in Durham.
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As it happens, Duke has a campus in Kunshan, China, as well as one in Singapore. They’re definitely known internationally.