Google picks up pace in Bluffs
Source: Omaha World-Herald, by Tom Shaw
November 21, 2007
COUNCIL BLUFFS — Google's data center project here could get a lot bigger a lot sooner.
The company has purchased almost 1,000 acres of rural land south of the city for a possible second site for its Council Bluffs operations, said Mark Norman of the Council Bluffs Area Chamber of Commerce.
Part of the land is being graded and evaluated for construction, Norman said. Norman and Ken Patchett, a Google operations manager overseeing development of the Bluffs center, said no decisions have been made about what will be done with the land.
Google has announced a $600 million data center that will employ 200 people. The first half of the project is being built on 55 acres between South 11th Street and Indian Creek, north of U.S. Highway 275.
Google was considering building the second part of the project on 130 acres of land west of the creek.
But Norman said the company might instead start building the second phase on the 1,000-acre site, which is about four miles southeast of the current construction site. One thousand acres is a sizable piece of ground; a section of land, or a square mile, is 640 acres.
"I would anticipate that if everything falls into place, phase two would be down there," Norman said.
Council Bluffs Mayor Tom Hanafan said he sees Google upping its commitment to Council Bluffs in the coming years.
"You're going to see a lot more investment and obviously a lot more jobs," he said.
The Internet search company had options to purchase the 1,000-acre site for several months. The chunk of land was assembled from 20 or so pieces that were owned by several different people.
In a statement, Google spokeswoman Sunny Gettinger said it will take more than a year to prepare the land. She said the work is being done now "in order to shorten the timeline for possible future deployments."
"We're very happy with the potential for growth in Council Bluffs should our business and capacity needs require it," the statement said. "Progress on the initial project is going very well."
Gettinger said that equipment testing for the first half of the project should begin in late 2008 and that the center is scheduled to be fully operational in 2009.
Google's data centers, also called server farms, are essentially large warehouses containing computer equipment that process services such as Web page searches. In addition to Council Bluffs, the company is in various stages of building data centers in North Carolina, South Carolina and Oklahoma. The company's original center is in Oregon.
Norman and Patchett said the 1,000-acre site has certain advantages over the 130 acres near Google's first Bluffs site. The larger parcel is in a rural area and would provide better security than land near U.S. Highway 275, they said. The sheer size of the parcel would provide more development opportunities.
"From a security standpoint, it's nice to have a lot of space," said Patchett, who was in Council Bluffs on Tuesday to speak at a chamber luncheon.
It's too soon to know how extensive Google's development will be, Norman said. "The potential is there, but at the moment nobody can say whether it will or will not happen."
The 1,000-acre site is outside the Council Bluffs city limits. But the city intends to annex that land and other areas of possible industrial development in coming years to provide for orderly growth, Hanafan said.
A bill approved by the Iowa Legislature and signed by Gov. Chet Culver this year provides Google with financial incentives. A state fiscal analysis performed before Google officially announced the project estimated the value of the sales and property tax incentives for a $600 million data center at $34 million between 2009 and 2012.
In addition, Google could be eligible for other tax benefits through separate state economic development programs that could exceed $48 million over 20 years.
During his speech Tuesday, Patchett said Council Bluffs was chosen for the data center for several reasons. They include the availability of fiber-optic cable in the Omaha metropolitan area, the proximity of a MidAmerican Energy Co. plant and the region's "untapped" pool of information technology employees.
Google hires many employees locally, he said, and has already interviewed some of the candidates who applied at a recent Council Bluffs job fair. He said that once hired, employees are involved in community activities through partnerships with local schools and colleges, as well as with nonprofit groups.
