[magellan]

North Carolina is giddy over Google's plans to build a massive data center in rural Caldwell County, and have agreed to fork over $260 Million in tax breaks to land the center. But in reality, is it more than just an air-conditioned warehouse to store servers? Not really, says Google spokesperson Barry Schnitt:

"It's a building filled with computers," said company spokesman Barry Schnitt -- there's nothing that needs to be shipped, packaged or assembled. There will be jobs, 210 of them to keep the servers running and the building secure, but those spinoffs? Said Schnitt, "It depends on how they're defining spin-off businesses. Will there be a need for more hotel rooms during construction? Will a local security firm hire more?"

This after Winston Salem gave a $250 Million deal to Dell to build a facility there two years ago, for 1100 assembly line jobs.

In contrast, Michigan only had to fork over $38 Million in tax breaks for Google to locate its new Adwords tech center in Ann Arbor, projected to create over 1000 high-tech jobs with average salaries of $47,000. And Google had pretty much made their decision to locate to AA before the tax breaks.

Oops, I meant to post this in the NC section. Take care y'all!

[Road_Trip]

Moderator cut: personal - off topic .

FYI, they can afford to AC a warehouse.

The News and Observer
Friday, March 9, 2007


State has big budget surplus
Much likely to go to urgent concerns

J. Andrew Curliss, Staff Writer
[cut - copyrights]

[Bhaalspawn]

That seems like a lot of money for 200 jobs. Soon North Carolina will get to spend even more money when the victims of the Duke Lacrosse case sue the state.

[magellan]

Originally Posted by NC_mom_of_3

DH and I moved to North Carolina two years ago. Prior to that I lived in Ann Arbor for 35 years. In many ways Michigan and North Carolina are similar. In fact, I could take you to many areas in NC and you would not know if you were in North Carolina or Michigan. Our economies are similar. Your auto and our textile and farming aren't what they use to be. Banking and RTP now drives our economy. Michigan is moving to Life Sciences. And while there may be areas of NC that frequently say y'all, in Cary I rarely hear it. It’s always a pleasant surprise when I do.

Yeah, isn't Cary referred to as the Corral Area for Relocated Yankees (or something similar), because of all the transplants mainly from NY and NJ?

[zygnoda]

Thats a funny story.

[zthatzmanz28]

North Carolina just landed the Apple R&D Center last week...

Another $46 million tax break for free enterprise..

AppleInsider | Apple reportedly building $1 billion server farm

[magellan]

Originally Posted by zthatzmanz28

North Carolina just landed the Apple R&D Center last week...

Another $46 million tax break for free enterprise..

AppleInsider | Apple reportedly building $1 billion server farm

A server farm is not an "R&D" center. It's just one big air conditioned warehouse with a bunch of server towers in it, employing probably 100 people or less (mainly doing maintenance).

How do targeted tax breaks = free enterprise? Isn't that the government picking winners and losers? Not that I'm against tax breaks, as they do some good things, especially in urban brownfield areas where development isn't feasible otherwise.