Apple quietly explores putting a campus in northern Virginia

Apple has quietly explored the idea of opening a campus for 20,000 employees in northern Virginia, further advancing the possibility that the Washington area could evolve into an East Coast outpost for Silicon Valley.

Apple’s consideration of the region comes eight months after Amazon selected three local jurisdictions there as part of its high-profile search for a North American headquarters outside of Seattle.

Economic development officials under Virginia Governor Ralph Northam proposed several sites for the project after Apple representatives said the company was seeking 4 million square feet of office space to accommodate 20,000 jobs, according to officials and real estate executives familiar with the discussions.

That amount of space is nearly two-thirds the size of the Pentagon and about half what Amazon is seeking for its second headquarters, potentially setting up a competition between the two tech giants for locations where they can attract top workers.

The sites proposed by Northam’s staff for Apple include office buildings and development sites in Crystal City, privately owned Loudoun County land near the Center for Innovative Technology and the Scotts Run development in Tysons.

Two of those locations, Crystal City and the Loudoun land, are part of sites Northam also pitched to Amazon. Both companies plan to make a decision this year.

When Amazon narrowed its search to 20 finalist jurisdictions, it included the District of Columbia, northern Virginia and Montgomery County, giving the Washington region more entrants than any other. The project attracted subsidy offers of as much as $7 billion from some states, a frenzy of national media attention, and protests from residents worried about the implications of tech’s growth on housing prices, traffic and inequality.

By conducting its search in relative secrecy Apple has taken a different tact in seeking its new space, something Apple chief executive Tim Cook highlighted in a recent interview when he said “we’re not doing a beauty contest kind of thing.”

Apple said in January that it planned to spend $30 billion on new facilities and hire 20,000 employees in the U.S. over the next five years, and company officials said much of that growth will come at a new location outside of California and Texas, home to its two largest hubs.

Apple spokespersons declined to comment on whether Northern Virginia was being considered as a location for the campus.