Apple’s North Carolina data center
Apple’s taking a billion dollars and heading to Reno, but it’s going to avoid the slots: it plans to invest the money in a data center and a separate shipping and receiving office.
The proposed data center will actually be located east of Sparks, Nev., a little outside Reno. The business office is intended to be located in downtown Reno.
The Reno Gazette-Journal reported Tuesday from the Washoe County Board of Commissioners meeting where Apple presented its case for the Sparks data center. The paper quotes Mike Folks, an Apple spokesman, saying that the data center should be up and running before the end of 2012, and that Apple is looking for a “30-year relationship” with the area.
Apple will go before the Reno City Council to make its case for the business center on Wednesday.
According to the Reno Gazette-Journal, ”the data center east of town (called Project Jonathan) is estimated to generate up to 41 jobs as well as 200 long-term contractors. The project would generate about 580 direct construction jobs.”
As part of the agreement, Apple will be getting both sales and property tax breaks from the city and county. Apple, of course, is not a newcomer to Nevada or Reno — or its favorable tax policies. The New York Times recently focused on Apple’s small Reno office, run as a subsidiary called Braeburn Capital. The Times highlighted the small office as an example of how places like Nevada, which does not collect corporate taxes, can act as a tax haven for businesses like Apple.
There aren’t a lot of details about why Apple chose the unincorporated area of northern Nevada for the data center, which would be its fourth announced in the U.S., after Maiden, N.C., Prineville, Ore. and Newark, Calif. Apple has pledged to power its existing data centers with significant amounts of local, renewable energy sources, so the location could be tied to nearby solar farms.
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