The town of Lockport, New York is courting…courting a data center and call center, that is.
Internet giant Yahoo plans to spend $168 million on a new data center and call center project that will reportedly bring 115 jobs to the lucky town that gets the contract. Lockport already saw the opening of a Yahoo data center in 2010 that created 77 jobs. Now, the town says it’s attracting a second Yahoo facility with a bundle of incentives.
First, the town has proposed to Yahoo an 18-year property tax break, including no property taxes at all for the first 10 years, and a sales tax exemption for 20 years on building materials and equipment used to furnish the buildings in the town’s industrial park, according to Buffalo News. Empire State Development will contribute to the incentives with up to $200,000 a year in tax credits.
The deal seems all but concluded in Lockport’s favor. Yahoo today announced that is has chosen Lockport as the site. The new facility will provide additional capacity and world-class customer care service, ensuring that Yahoo! users have fast product experiences and access to helpful customer support, according to the region’s Herald Online news site. The building will reportedly be built to LEED or an energy-efficient standard like Yahoo’s other Lockport facility. The entire Buffalo-Niagara region has an advantage for companies looking to build green: an abundance of clean hydropower.
“We are happy to be a part of the Western New York community and are excited about our expansion plans. We are appreciative of our close partnerships with local municipalities and are grateful to our outstanding workforce in Lockport,” said David Dibble, executive vice president of central technology for Yahoo!. “Yahoo! is committed to being an environmentally responsible company, and we thank New York state and local authorities for working with us to ensure we continue to power our data center with clean energy.”
Yahoo’s new data center will utilize the company’s Yahoo! Compute Coop (YCC) architecture. The YCC is a world-class, energy-efficient data center design that uses significantly less energy and water than conventional data centers. The unique shape of the building and the use of outside air-cooling for approximately 98 percent of the year eliminate the need for expensive and energy-intensive chillers to keep the servers cool, reported the Herald.
Edited by Brooke Neuman