Apple May Build Purchasing and Receiving Facility in Downtown Reno

[MacRumors]

Apple may be planning to purchase half a city block in downtown Reno, Nevada, for the purpose of creating a purchasing and receiving facility, reports Reno's KRNV.

The Reno City Council will discuss Apple's plans to purchase the property, located at 6th Street and Evans Avenue, at a Wednesday meeting. Apple is planning to build the facility alongside a planned data center at the Reno Technology Park, which Apple has been pursuing since 2012.

A filing from an assistant city attorney states that Reno and Urban Development have a reimbursement agreement to allow Apple to buy the land. The agreement would have Apple getting sales tax reimbursements through Urban Development for the cost of buying and adding to projects in the city's Téssera district.

Apple already operates one data center in Reno, and has been expanding on it for several years. When finished, the site will encompass 14 buildings and 412,000 square feet.

Apple is also planning to build a second data center adjacent to its existing center and requested permission from the city for the project back in early 2016.

Article Link: Apple May Build Purchasing and Receiving Facility in Downtown Reno

 

[Sheza]

What exactly is a 'purchasing & receiving facility'?

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

This would a call center.

 

[guzhogi]

What exactly is a 'purchasing & receiving facility'?

I had the exact same question.

 

[lunarworks]

What exactly is a 'purchasing & receiving facility'?

I'm guessing it's a fancy word for a warehouse.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

I'm guessing it's a fancy word for a warehouse.

Or perhaps some combination of warehouse and office space, since purchasing is a desk job. A receiving facility is subtly different than a warehouse. In this case, it's likely intended for incoming shipments of servers, racks, routers, etc. for the data centers, providing short-term holding rather than long-term storage.

 

[Zadigre]

with this new facility, they could receive products from anywhere in the world and distribute them everywhere in North America instead of doing all the logistics in China for new products launch.
This might help with the new Trump policies...

 

[Constable Odo]

Does anyone know if Apple actually uses their data centers? I hear they've been relying on AWS and Google cloud services. I really don't understand why a company as wealthy as Apple has to rely on other companies when they can build their own cloud services. It just strikes me as being odd.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Does anyone know if Apple actually uses their data centers? I hear they've been relying on AWS and Google cloud services. I really don't understand why a company as wealthy as Apple has to rely on other companies when they can build their own cloud services. It just strikes me as being odd.

They're not building them to stand idle. Yes, they're using contractors for some of their cloud capacity, and they're likely to keep using them - it allows them to roll out services prior to fully building out capacity. It allows them to cope with higher-than-anticipated demand, and if business someday goes in the wrong direction, they're not stuck with excess capacity.

 

[Cloudkicker]

Is this a tax dodge?

 

[BBCWatcher]

The agreement would have Apple getting sales tax reimbursements through Urban Development for the cost of buying and adding to projects in the city's Téssera district.

Something is very, very wrong when the world's most valuable, most cash rich company gets a special tax break to open a building for its normal business operations.

The European Union prohibits member countries from providing illegal state aid. That's to help prevent, or at least to curb, local governments from engaging in pointless, zero sum bidding wars for corporate affections. Apple is entangled in exactly that sort of dispute right now, in Ireland. (And most likely Apple will have to cough up a substantial amount of corporate income tax.) The United States needs a similar limitation on state and local government competition. Apple was going to build this warehouse...excuse me, "purchasing and receiving facility"...somewhere. If not in Reno then in Carson City, Provo, Santa Fe, or somewhere else. Now what's happening is poor and middle class residents of Reno who pay sales tax are subsidizing the world's richest company. They're getting screwed yet again. Those who can least afford paying for Apple's municipal services, including police and fire protection, are paying. It's yet more upward transfer of wealth and income, from the poorest to the richest, and with Reno's city government as the conduit.

This nonsense has got to stop. I don't necessarily blame Apple for playing the game as it exists, but government should not be playing these games at all. The good people of Reno and of every other city and town deserve better governance.

 

[cjbryce]

he United States needs a similar limitation on state and local government competition.

Whilst I might agree with you, would that not be almost impossible in the US model of pork-barrel politics where Senators and Congressmen absolutely rely on Federal money being spent in their states and offer policy support in direct return?

Similarly, states and local cities do compete against each other for inward investment, and offering tax-breaks and other incentives is part of that. One would assume that these incentives are offered in the hope that the local community will benefit overall from new jobs, local spending of the incoming companies, prestige &etc, so it's not always A Bad Thing.

However, that (competitive) model may well be considered reprehensible by some since it's effectively spending tax-payer monies to incentivise inward investment. Such is life - the trick, surely, is to make the incentives vs. investment equation a beneficial one for the local community/state - and ensure that the benefit is long-term not just fleeting.

As far as Apple receiving these incentives, while the model persists who wouldn't take advantaged of it?

 

[Rocketman]

I own a manufacturing company. Purchasing and receiving are major elements of the business. I can easily understand why they would need a huge one and would want it on major rail and road and air routes and NOT in congested San Francisco. The fact it is near a data centre is a trivial coincidence.

However the fact Reno is a short truck ride to Cupertino or a sea port is not trivial. The fact it is in NV and not CA is exceptionally not trivial.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Cup...5c5ce7438f787!2m2!1d-119.8138027!2d39.5296329

 

[TXAppleUser]

The warm, dry climate in Reno makes it an ideal location for an electronics warehouse. It is also a great place to generate solar electricity (like Apple does on the roof of many of their buildings). The Reno airport is also a busy airport for UPS, FedEx, and DHL, and is located relatively close to Cupertino. Lots of things add up here.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Something is very, very wrong when the world's most valuable, most cash rich company gets a special tax break to open a building for its normal business operations.

The European Union prohibits member countries from providing illegal state aid. That's to help prevent, or at least to curb, local governments from engaging in pointless, zero sum bidding wars for corporate affections. Apple is entangled in exactly that sort of dispute right now, in Ireland. (And most likely Apple will have to cough up a substantial amount of corporate income tax.) The United States needs a similar limitation on state and local government competition. Apple was going to build this warehouse...excuse me, "purchasing and receiving facility"...somewhere. If not in Reno then in Carson City, Provo, Santa Fe, or somewhere else. Now what's happening is poor and middle class residents of Reno who pay sales tax are subsidizing the world's richest company. They're getting screwed yet again. Those who can least afford paying for Apple's municipal services, including police and fire protection, are paying. It's yet more upward transfer of wealth and income, from the poorest to the richest, and with Reno's city government as the conduit.

This nonsense has got to stop. I don't necessarily blame Apple for playing the game as it exists, but government should not be playing these games at all. The good people of Reno and of every other city and town deserve better governance.

In principle, I agree that this tends to be a zero-sum game. No matter where the business locates, there will be economic benefits, and whenever a business departs, there is economic loss. There's a saying in the US, "All politics is local." It's at the local level where government activity, for good or bad, will be most noticed (and rewarded/penalized at the ballot box).

One of the reasons the US "Rust Belt" exists is that some of that manufacturing simply moved to other states. One of the reasons for that shift was that those other states have laws that are less friendly to organized labor. The "tax break" in that case was lower wages, though tax incentives, government-paid infrastructure improvements and the like may also have been part of the incentive package.

However, I think this is more about appearances than the net effect. The goal is to stimulate economic activity - a large employer brings economic activity that benefits the area as a whole - wages spent in the local economy, trade with local businesses, higher tax revenues overall. The infrastructure investments necessary to make a place attractive/viable for a particular kind of business (for example, building a dam to provide the water and cheap hydropower needed to open an arid area to agriculture) may seem less odious than a targeted tax incentive for a specific company.

If the world was an even playing field, then perhaps government could either be completely hands-off, or prohibit any spending that might favor one locale over another. But there are all sorts of differences that give advantage to one place and disadvantage to another, so people have every incentive to try to either level the playing field, or tilt it to their advantage.

 

[Rocketman]

Does anyone know if Apple actually uses their data centers? I hear they've been relying on AWS and Google cloud services. I really don't understand why a company as wealthy as Apple has to rely on other companies when they can build their own cloud services. It just strikes me as being odd.

The article I read about it is associated with ramp time and capacity issues. Apple is adding server capacity in newly built buildings and using AWS and GC as an interim resource but plans to have less reliance over time, but maintain good relations so it can purchase surge capacity as needed. I think Apple is everyones top 3 client right now. IBM also has cloud and AI. Not sure how much of that AAPL is using.