Apple is looking at two different sites in north San Jose for expansion, according to Silicon Valley Business Journal. Any move into the largest city in the Valley would be the first such for Apple, despite its close proximity to Cupertino—the two municipalities border one another.
Apple's appetite for real estate has been prodigious. In addition to building a new headquarters in Cupertino dubbed Apple Headquarters 2 (or the Spaceship HQ to the outside world), Apple has leased space in Sunnyvale and Santa Clara, both north of Cupertino, and office space all over Cupertino itself has been snapped up by Apple for years.
San Jose is considered part of Silicon Valley, and it claims the headquarters for Adobe, Ebay, and Cisco. Hitachi has a major operation in the city, and Intel and IBM also have a presence in the city. But it still doesn't have the corporate cachet of Mountain View, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, and Cupertino, though an Apple-funded economic impact study found that 25 percent of its employees live in San Jose.
In local politics and business circles, Apple coming to San Jose would be a big deal that gave the city a shot of tech big-shot cred.
Apple is reportedly looking at two facilities, the first being a 1.5 million square foot space close to Mineta San Jose International Airport. It's zoned for office, research and development, and light industrial space, though there's no specific indication what Apple would use it for.
The second space is much smaller, just 300,000 square feet. For extra fun, Tesla has reportedly been looking at that space, too.
Image made with help from Shutterstock.