Apple is making contingency plans in the event that its proposed giant U.K. campus in London’s iconic Battersea Power Station is delayed.
According to a new report, Apple is coming up with backup options “just in case” it is impossible to realize the creation of the new campus by December 2020, as planned.
As we noted back in 2016, when this was first announced, the 500,000-square-foot site represents one of the biggest single office deals in London — outside the City and Docklands area — in the past two decades.
Apple’s campus aims to bring together roughly 1,400 employees who are currently scattered in multiple officers — similar to what the giant Apple Park has done in California, albeit on a smaller scale. The new London offices will take up six floors in total, in an iconic London location first built in the 1930s and 1950s.
It’s not clear exactly why Apple fears that the project might face delays, but it is supposedly in “early stage talks” with property managers at other temporary locations in the event that the project falls behind schedule or suffers some other kind of delay.
Even for a company with the size and clout of Apple, construction problems can be unavoidable. In May this year, Apple ditched plans to build an 850 million euro ($960 million) data center in Ireland after a series of delays caused by complaints. The company has also run into major problems developing a proposed Australian flagship store.
Source: Times (paywall)
