Apple's "spaceship" campus planned for 2016 grand opening

Apple's new "spaceship" campus is planned to finally open its doors sometime in 2016, according to CEO Tim Cook who discussed the new headquarters during a shareholders meeting today. Cook expects to break ground on the new campus sometime later this year, but says that the company is still in talks with the city to gain approval for the project.

The spaceship campus, also known as Campus 2, was the brainchild of co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs. The building will have four stories and consist of 2.8 million square feet of space. Apple currently can fit 2,800 employees in its current headquarters, but hopes to squeeze in over 14,000 employees in the spaceship.

The circular facility will have a huge courtyard in the middle that will be filled with trees and various landscaping. In fact, Apple says that the new headquarters will be 80% landscape with over 7,000 trees, which should make any rainforest jealous. Jobs has said that the abundance of landscaping will be both beneficial to the environment and to Apple's employees.

However, the revised 2016 opening date makes the project a bit behind schedule. Apple initially wanted to break ground last year and have the new headquarters completed sometime in 2015, but it looks like we'll be waiting three years or so before we'll get to see the new campus. However, we're almost positive that we'll see photos of the facility over the next couple of years as it's being built.

[via CNET]