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$2 Billion Apple Data Center Project in Arizona part of Data Center Boom says Construction Reporter

Industry: Real Estate

Special tax incentives have spurred ebay, ViaWest, CyrusOne and now Apple to build data centers across Arizona in recent years, construction jobs have followed.

Arizona (PRUnderground) May 19th, 2015

Last February Apple, Incorporated formally announced its plan to construct a $2 billion facility in Mesa, Arizona, by upgrading what was once the 1.3 million square foot First Solar facility.   Apple’s new Mesa facility will function as a control facility for its global networks.  At least 150 permanent employees are expected to be hired there.

Apple received up to $28 million in state and local tax breaks for energy consumption and renewable energy use.

“These are the kinds of incentives that trigger the intended result, which is more business activity in the state of Arizona,” says Jim Grice, one of the organizers of the Arizona Data Center Coalition.  Two years ago, Arizona legislators created a special status for data centers if certain requirements are met, where they would be eligible for tax breaks.

Requirements included investment by data centers of at least $50 million for projects in urban areas and $25 million for projects in non-urban areas.  Tax credits support job training, angel investments, renewable energy use, and commercial/industrial solar energy use.

Data center construction has seen a global boom in recent years, as indicated by International Data Corporation’s recent report, indicating that total global data center space is expected to equal 2 billion square feet in the next 3 years, up from 1.5 billion in 2013.

According to Grice, the data boom is “not about job creation—we have said before that we don’t want a job-creation threshold.  It’s instead all about construction activity and construction jobs..”

For more on this topic and other construction news and jobs across Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and the El Paso area, check out www.constructionreporter.com

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Founded in 1949 to provide New Mexico contractors with local project information, Construction Reporter has grown steadily in size and coverage area, today serving the commercial construction industry throughout the Southwest. Our mission is to help our customers succeed by delivering reliable, comprehensive, up-to-the-minute information on projects in planning and out for bid in New Mexico and the surrounding states. We are passionate about helping our member companies grow by delivering the most bidding opportunities, the most efficient bidding tools, and the most industry exposure of any news service in the region.

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