Apple has signed a lease to take over two floors inside a downtown Seattle skyscraper, according to a report from Bloomberg.
The news comes as a welcome sign that one of the Silicon Valley’s most revered technology behemoths is serious about growing a footprint in the Seattle area, tapping into the city’s wealth of engineering talent specifically in cloud computing arena.
Apple spent the past several months building a small team in a temporary office in Ballard, but now it looks like it’s settling into something more permanent. GeekWire first reported on Apple’s arrival in the Seattle area through the November acquisition of Union Bay Networks, a Seattle startup backed by Madrona Venture Group and led by former F5 executives.
The company hasn’t commented yet on how large its Seattle presence is, but LinkedIn indicates the company has at least 30 workers here.
It joins a growing roster of California heavy-hitters, including Facebook, Google and Dropbox, who are setting up — and expanding — Seattle outposts. See GeekWire’s list of engineering outposts.
Apple’s new 30,000-square-foot space, which is enough room for up to about 200 workers, is in the Two Union Square tower. The company, which is also building a new headquarters in Silicon Valley, employs about 115,000 worldwide.
An Apple spokesperson declined to comment for this story. The company also didn’t comment to Bloomberg, but that report cites “two people with knowledge of the matter.”
We’ve reached out to leasing agents at Union Square, and we’ll update this post as we hear more.
