Evidence is mounting that Apple has picked a location for its new campus that could create as many as 10,000 jobs

Getty

• Apple is currently searching for a location for a new campus that could host as many as 10,000 employees.
• It's looking increasingly likely that North Carolina's Raleigh region is a top candidate.
• The statehouse is preparing an incentives package to lure Apple, according to a local report on Wednesday.
• Nobody's commenting on the incentives package, which reportedly includes a rebate for as much as 90% of Apple's share of withholding taxes and 30 years of property tax abatements.

Apple said earlier this year that it planned to build a new campus somewhere in the United States for thousands of new employees.

It increasingly looks like the new Apple campus could land in Cary, North Carolina, close to Duke University, where several top Apple executives went to school.

Raleigh's WRAL reported on Wednesday that sources in North Carolina believe the Apple campus is a "done deal," and that the only hurdle left is for the North Carolina state house to pass a package of tax incentives in order to score the $1.5 billion investment from Apple.

There was even a scheduled announcement for early June, although the deal could still be derailed, according to the report.

The news comes one day after North Carolina was first tipped as a possible location for the new Apple campus. The Washington Post also reported that Virginia state officials had pitched Apple.

The incentive package, according to WRAL, could include provisions that grant Apple as much as 90% of withholding taxes from the campus in exchange for between 3,000 and 10,000 jobs, as well as 30 years of property tax abatements. Although Apple previously said that the campus would hold call center workers, it seems possible that it might also have high-paying tech jobs as well.

Apple CEO Tim Cook was in the region to give a commencement speech at Duke University on May 13 and reportedly met with Governor Roy Cooper.

Apple's search for a new campus location is being conducted in secret. That's in contrast to Amazon's search for a second headquarters, in which the company issued an open request for proposals. Apple may have had its heart set on North Carolina the entire time, according to Wednesday's report.

"We're not doing a beauty contest kind of thing," Cook told Recode's Kara Swisher in a recent interview.

The governor's office declined to comment, saying "we do not share information about economic development projects before they are final." North Carolina's head state senator, Phil Berger, declined to comment through a representative, citing a "longstanding policy that we do not comment on economic development prospects." North Carolina's Speaker of the House, Tim Moore, did not respond to a request for comment. Apple didn't respond to a request for comment.

Know anything about Apple's new campus? Email kleswing@businessinsider.com