Apple will invest $250M in new Oregon data center
Apple's new green data center in Prineville, Ore., will be a major $250 million investment in 160 acres of land for the company.
The details of Apple's arrangement with the city of Prineville and Cook County were revealed on Friday by The Associated Press. Apple has also pledged to pay the governments $150,000 a year, and will receive a 15-year property tax exemption.
The iCloud operator will also have a minimum of 35 jobs at the center, and the average wage there will be 150 percent of the average wage in Cook County. Details on how the $150,000 annual payments will be split between the city of Prineville and the county are yet to be determined.
Apple confirmed in February that it plans to build the new, environmentally friendly data center in Prineville. The company purchased the 160-acre lot where it will be located for $5.6 million.
The first phase of the project is expected to be a relatively small 10,000 square feet. It will start as eight modular data center units before Apple will build a bigger facility similar to a nearby server farm owned by the social networking site Facebook.
Facebook, in fact, was said to have helped draw Apple's attention to the city in central Oregon. Officials at Facebook provided representatives of Apple with a tour of their facility in 2011.
Apple's new facilities in Oregon are expected to support the company's iCloud service, which launched last year. Currently, most of the iCloud operation is run through Apple's $1 billion server farm in Maiden, N.C.
The company's Internet-based cloud services came under fire this week by environmental advocacy group Greenpeace, which criticized the North Carolina facility for relying on coal-based power. Apple quickly responded and portrayed the report as inaccurate, and stated that renewable energy will provide 50 percent more of the North Carolina facility's needs than Greenpeace projected.
The details of Apple's arrangement with the city of Prineville and Cook County were revealed on Friday by The Associated Press. Apple has also pledged to pay the governments $150,000 a year, and will receive a 15-year property tax exemption.
The iCloud operator will also have a minimum of 35 jobs at the center, and the average wage there will be 150 percent of the average wage in Cook County. Details on how the $150,000 annual payments will be split between the city of Prineville and the county are yet to be determined.
Apple confirmed in February that it plans to build the new, environmentally friendly data center in Prineville. The company purchased the 160-acre lot where it will be located for $5.6 million.
The first phase of the project is expected to be a relatively small 10,000 square feet. It will start as eight modular data center units before Apple will build a bigger facility similar to a nearby server farm owned by the social networking site Facebook.
Facebook, in fact, was said to have helped draw Apple's attention to the city in central Oregon. Officials at Facebook provided representatives of Apple with a tour of their facility in 2011.
Apple's new facilities in Oregon are expected to support the company's iCloud service, which launched last year. Currently, most of the iCloud operation is run through Apple's $1 billion server farm in Maiden, N.C.
The company's Internet-based cloud services came under fire this week by environmental advocacy group Greenpeace, which criticized the North Carolina facility for relying on coal-based power. Apple quickly responded and portrayed the report as inaccurate, and stated that renewable energy will provide 50 percent more of the North Carolina facility's needs than Greenpeace projected.
Comments
Eventually, half the US will be covered by server farms... but will they also be eligible for farm subsidies?
I breathlessly await Greenpeace's report on this abomination.
/s
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpamSandwich
Eventually, half the US will be covered by server farms... but will they also be eligible for farm subsidies?
No, but if anyone inside passes gas, you can bet there'll be a methane tax.
In Cook county, I like that county name !
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpamSandwich
Eventually, half the US will be covered by server farms... but will they also be eligible for farm subsidies?
Somehow I doubt that will be sustainable in terms of power needed to run them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpamSandwich
Eventually, half the US will be covered by server farms... but will they also be eligible for farm subsidies?
What do you call a 15-year property tax holiday?
My guess is that the $150,000/year payments in lieu of taxes are more than the municipality was making without the server farm, when the land was taxed as unimproved vacant land.
Whether it is good or bad, in the long run, is unknown to us.
Quote:
Originally Posted by I am a Zither Zather Zuzz
My guess is that the $150,000/year payments in lieu of taxes are more than the municipality was making without the server farm, when the land was taxed as unimproved vacant land.
Whether it is good or bad, in the long run, is unknown to us.
In addition to the $150,000 annual payments ($2.25 M over the 15 year agreement), add in the value of the jobs created and the positive impact this will have on local real estate values - so the state and community will still gain quite a bit from this investment.
It's strange that the AI report mentions the NC data center's use of green energy and the Greenpeace nonsense, but fails to mention that Apple has committed to the Oregon data center being run on 100% renewable energy. I guess it's too much to expect AI to report an entire story all at once. Instead, they'll make this into at least 5 or 6 stories and put a little information into each one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
It's strange that the AI report mentions the NC data center's use of green energy and the Greenpeace nonsense, but fails to mention that Apple has committed to the Oregon data center being run on 100% renewable energy. I guess it's too much to expect AI to report an entire story all at once. Instead, they'll make this into at least 5 or 6 stories and put a little information into each one.
That's technology media in 2012: they worship the Almighty Pageview. Real professional journalism died in the Nineties.
AI will stretch this out by adding more stories, to generate more page views.
Oddly, some traditional media sources (like newspapers, wire services) will go back and add additional information to the same story to flesh it out once more details become available. But technology blogs never do that.
With all the renewable energy options here in Oregon, it's a great place for this kind of facility. My own home uses a 100% renewable mix of wind, hydro and biomass for electricity.
I haven't gotten Lion yet or joined the cloud, but maybe I will now that I can drive a few hours to pick up my information manually. It would be nice if they had little USB ports on the sides of the building.
Also, nice to see they used a sunny day to take the Facebook picture.
By the way, Greenpeace is a focused, many times one-dimensional advocate - that doesn't make their claims nonsense, it makes them watchdogs. Give them credit when necessary and ignore them when not.