Construction of Apple's Campus 2 headquarters in Cupertino is already underway and the most recent planning documents showed detailed descriptions of the visitor center and observation deck.
The detailed building plans were spotted by the Silicon Valley Business Journal in documents filed with the city way back April. The initial planning documents forwarded to the city already included plans for a visitor center, but the April report provided a much detailed construction plan for the project.
According to the report, the planned center will be a modern glass-walled structure, with a carbon fiber roof and large skylights. A 10,114-square-foot Apple store will be housed on the ground floor, along with a 2,386-square-foot café. Atop the nearly 23 foot structure is an observation deck that will allow visitors to view the massive Apple campus. Apple will reportedly use a screen to block views onto the adjacent single-family home community. The company even included plans for a carpark that can accommodate 684 cars, to be constructed below ground.
Robert Lawson Brown, longtime Apple enthusiast and member of the Silicon Valley Macintosh Users Group, told the Silicon Valley Business Journal in an email, how he sees himself visiting the Apple center especially when relatives come to visit. "I think that Apple executives recognize that there is general public interest in corporate buildings as works of art and centers of technological culture," Brown wrote.
Brown even described the addition of a store in the Apple campus a winner. "Such a visitor center will move product," he wrote. "I suspect a lot of new product introductions will be made at the store, with the CEO providing photo opportunities of a new device with (Apple Campus 2) in the background."
Meanwhile, Fortune reports that the visitor center will not be part of the new Cupertino campus. The planning documents listed the location of Apple's visitor center across the street, at 10700 N. Tantau Avenue. The center will face the southeast quadrant of the massive campus.
Once complete, the Apple campus 2 headquarters will feature a 2.8 million square foot ring-shaped main building, with a fitness center, a large auditorium, the visitor's center and underground parking.
