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Apple picks North Carolina

Catawba County considered a front-runner for new facility

Robert C. Reed | Hickory Daily Record

Scott Millar, with Catawba County Economic Development Corp., displays maps of a proposed data center near Maiden.

BY THE NUMBERS

$1 billion

Amount Apple Inc. is expected to invest in its North Carolina data center over nine years

$300 million

Estimated value of corporate tax breaks Apple will receive if it operates the data center for the next 30 years

$46 million

Estimated value of tax breaks over the next 10 years

50

Minimum number of people the data center will employ full-time

By John Dayberry | Hickory Daily Record

Published: June 4, 2009

HICKORY - Apple Inc. will build a data center in North Carolina, but won't yet say if it will be in Catawba County.

Gov. Beverly Perdue announced Wednesday that Apple has selected North Carolina as the location for a new data center. The technology giant is expected to invest $1 billion in the project over nine years.

While Catawba County is thought to be the front-runner for the data center, neither Apple nor the N.C. Department of Commerce would say where the facility will be built.

The company is working on acquiring a site, said Susan Lundgren, a spokeswoman for Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple.

Wednesday's announcement came two days after the state legislature agreed to special tax breaks targeting Apple and the same day Perdue signed the incentives bill into law.

The data center will employ at least 50 people full-time as the billion-dollar investment is made over nine years, Apple officials said.

Perdue's office said the data center could generate another 250 jobs for people providing services to the plant and more than 3,000 related jobs for the region surrounding the site.

The incentives law requires that the data center be built in one of North Carolina's most economically distressed counties.

Catawba and Cleveland counties are thought to be the two primary candidates. Catawba County's unemployment rate was 15 percent in April. Cleveland's was 15.1 percent.

Citing unnamed sources, a Cleveland County newspaper on Tuesday reported that it was "all but certain" that Catawba County would get the data center because its available sites were more favorable to Apple's needs.

Catawba County has two sites near Maiden that are suitable for data centers, and has been marketing them for that purpose, said Scott Millar, president of the Catawba County Economic Development Corp.

The 183-acre WestStar Mission Critical Business Park is being developed off Startown Road near its intersection with U.S. 321. The other Catawba County site includes a 156,000-square-foot former Carolina Mills building with up to 100 acres. Both sites offer access to large amounts of power and water, which data centers typically require.

Wednesday's announcement was not unexpected. The legislature quickly pushed through a bill that didn't identify Apple by name but was designed to encourage the company to build in the state by giving it a break on state corporate income taxes as part of a capital-intensive project.

The tax break could be worth about $46 million in the next decade, according to a memo by legislative fiscal staffers. Apple could, however, save more than $300 million on its corporate taxes if the server farm is in place for 30 years, based on the memo.

Millar applauded the state for courting Apple.

"It shows that an aggressive approach by the state yields benefits," Millar said.

"Our legislators did their job. Now we'll see where that $1 billion lands."