ARIZONA Photo courtesy of Boeing s the third time a charm? It sure looks that way for the 1.3 million- The Multiplier sq.-ft. (121,000-sq.-m.) facility now Ioccupied by Apple Computer in the Phoenix East Valley — the communities east of Phoenix to the Superstition Effect Mountains — in Mesa, specifcally, near the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. The building was constructed as a The Phoenix East Valley awaits the implications First Solar manufacturing facility until of landing Apple’s $2-billion command center; manufacturing there was no longer feasible. Next it was a scratch-resistant Boeing uses cost competitiveness to thread sapphire plant for Apple partner GT the sequestration needle. Advanced Technologies until that venture collapsed in late 2014. Long story short, Apple’s there now with big by MARK AREND plans for the giant facility — the frst to be located in Mesa’s Elliot Road
[email protected] Technology Corridor, a zone complete with foreign trade zone status for which Mesa has high hopes. The area is packed with new infrastructure, available and affordable land as far as the eye can see and proximity to the Greater Phoenix area’s growing pool of high-tech talent, SITE SELECTION MAY 2015 113 not to mention two commercial airports and new highways. Mesa’s new mayor, John Giles, is looking forward to the multiplier effect of Apple’s new digs in Mesa and in the East Valley. “When they came to tell us what their plans were, what they led with was that there is one worldwide headquarters for the Apple Corporation, and their — Mary Baldwin, Boeing’s Community Investor, Arizona proposal was for there now to be a second — a second worldwide command center for Apple,” the mayor told Site Selection in an interview in his offce on April 16th.