SANTA CLARA — Construction crews are back working on a big building that Apple has leased in Santa Clara, potential new evidence of the tech titan’s plans to return employees to offices as vaccination programs crawl ahead to combat the deadly coronavirus.
The office building is being constructed at 5407 Stevens Creek Boulevard and will sprout next to an even bigger office building at 5409 Stevens Creek.
Apple has leased both of these buildings from their developer and owner, legendary Silicon Valley real estate firm Peery Arrillaga.
The existing 5409 Stevens Creek office building totals 187,000 square feet and the under-construction building at 5407 Stevens Creek totals 147,500 square feet. Both buildings are six stories.
The two adjacent Santa Clara buildings are both just down the street from the prominent “Triangle Building” at 5300 Stevens Creek Blvd., which Apple also has leased.
And all of these buildings are a few miles away from Apple’s dramatic new campus at One Apple Park Way, a circular building sometimes dubbed the “spaceship” that’s the tech titan’s world headquarters.
The construction effort at the 5407 Stevens Creek building could point to an Apple plan to return workers to the office. However, the building could be more than a year away from completion.
Prior to the coronavirus, Apple had undertaken wide-ranging expansions beyond its hometown of Cupertino that including leases of a number of buildings in Sunnyvale and Santa Clara.
Apple also has bought at least some office buildings in Cupertino in recent years as well as big office buildings and land in north San Jose where the iPhone maker could build a huge new campus. Apple, however, has yet to submit any detailed plans to city planners for any development projects in north San Jose.
The timing of the construction of the Apple building in Santa Clara was tied in part to the ability of developers Richard Peery and John Arrillaga to find a suitable new location for a tenant on the site, IHOP, whose pancake restaurant was bulldozed to clear the way for the new office building. The replacement site has been found, according to Dave Sandlin, an executive vice president with Colliers International, a commercial real estate firm.
Now, with the building under construction, Apple is likely to return to its office sites that are closest to the company’s main headquarters complexes in Cupertino. The three buildings at Stevens Creek and Lawrence Expressway all fit the bill.
“Apple has always preferred to stay in and near its core area of Cupertino,” Sandlin said. “They will be returning to the Santa Clara site and the Triangle building.” Those returns may occur before Apple reoccupies offices in more distant locations such as Sunnyvale, according to Sandlin.
