Austin began the year with an uncertain courtship of one corporate giant and ended the year in a long-term relationship with another.

In January, the Austin area was identified as one of 20 finalists for a second headquarters for Seattle-based online retailer Amazon. The prospect of landing a $5 billion project set off a bidding war among cities. But many in Austin were cool to the idea of more traffic and more competition for housing, and the city offered no up-front incentives.

Weeks after Amazon chose New York and Washington for its HQ2, Apple revealed this month that it will build a $1 billion hub in North Austin that will initially employ 5,000 people but could eventually house up to 15,000 workers. While the campus will be smaller than Amazon’s HQ2, it will be Apple’s biggest corporate location outside of its headquarters in Cupertino, Calif.

Apple, which already employs about 7,000 people in Austin, is in line to receive $25 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund, along with millions of dollars’ worth of tax abatements from Williamson County.