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Hopes grow around Apple

Economic development announcement expected

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

Minimum number of people the data center will employ full time

By John Dayberry | Hickory Daily Record

Published: June 25, 2009

MAIDEN - Economic development officials are about to make a major announcement, and speculation is that it concerns the location of Apple Inc.'s new $1 billion data center.

The Maiden Town Council will join representatives of the Catawba County Board of Commissioners and the county's Economic Development Corp. on Monday, July 6, to make an announcement at the Maiden Recreation Center, said Marcus Midgett, Maiden's mayor pro tem.

Midgett said the announcement will probably involve a new industry coming to Maiden.

"Speaking purely speculatively, whether it was Apple, IBM or some other well-known company coming to Maiden, it would be a tremendous asset to Maiden and to Catawba County," Midgett said.

Catawba County Board of Commissioners Chairwoman Kitty Barnes said she and other commissioners have been asked to keep July 6 open.

Barnes said she does not know what the announcement will be, but that, "It would be great news if it's about Apple."

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.

Midgett said Maiden has worked closely with the county on developing and marketing the sites, and is hopeful that those efforts will land a major tenant.

Millar is also hopeful, but will not discuss the possibility of Apple picking either site.

"We're hopeful that one or more of the projects we've been pursuing will work out," Millar said.

Gov. Beverly Perdue announced June 3 that Apple had 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.

The 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.

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

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

The data center will employ at least 50 people full time, 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. Jobless rates for May will be announced Friday.

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

Apple's decision to build a data center in North Carolina 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.