I've been on my ranting horse of late (hehe). DBJ's Ed Sealover has the full scoop
HERE.
"Plan to give tax breaks to Colorado data centers faces many hurdles"
Quote:
That skepticism comes not only from its traditional liberal opponents, but from some Republicans who question whether more industry-specific tax credits are appropriate.
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Stupid liberals.
OK, it's true that data centers don't employ a lot of people. On top of that they are energy hogs. Many though, like Apple will use renewable sources.
Quote:
Data centers have become hot properties in the economic-development world, as companies investing in them tend to spend near $100 million on the equipment used to store cloud date needed by major companies in varying industries.
Seventeen states have enacted tax breaks to attract them so far.... Mitisek noted that data centers create five jobs outside of the facilities for every job inside them...
A number of companies have opened data centers here in recent years without the extra perk, and real estate giant CBRE recently ranked Colorado Springs as the fifth-best city in the country to open a data center, she noted
Mitisek remains optimistic that reports of large data centers choosing neighboring states like Wyoming and Arizona over Colorado in the past year will help the bill this year
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There are good sound arguments on both sides, as you might guess.
True bad sad story.
Arizona lost out in the first round of Apple expansion including R&D to Austin. As a consolation prize Apple bought a former 1st class quality building from First Solar to put in sapphire glass manufacturing to be run by GTAT. Apple even financed the equipment that GTAT needed. Unfortunately GTAT could not perform up to Apple's standards. Hello bankruptcy, bye bye 700 jobs.
Life after death.
Apple recently proposed to put a data center in the building. No ordinary data center this would be a $2 billion Command Control Center. The City of Mesa and especially the state bent over and prostituted themselves. The Arizona legislature quickly passed a bill that defined what Apple was doing as qualifying for certain things. The specific incentive package is undisclosed although pieces are known or presumed. That's the way Apple does business. Austin/Texas weren't bothered.
The point is:
I wouldn't suggest that Colorado should bend over but to take the arrogant approach seems folly to me. If you're a company looking to expand would you remember the state that eagerly solicited your data center business?