Google Continues to Invest in Iowa Data Centers, with Another $1B Planned for Council Bluffs Campus
Google’s Council Bluffs data center campus has already seen recent additional spending announced, with last year’s planned spending of $350 million on the campus increasing their overall investment to over $5 billion since 2007.
The additional billion dollars is on top of those previous investments in two Council Bluffs data centers, the first of which was commissioned in 2009, the second in 2013.
The existing facilities offer almost 3 million square feet of data center space split into 3 buildings.
The announcement the first week in July did not specify how this latest investment in their data centers would be spent.
Collaborative Effort
The investment will include a $1.3 billion grant that will be used to help pay for grade stabilization projects at 47 locations within the Missouri River basin.
Administered by the Great Outdoors Foundation, the project is a collaborative effort by Drake University, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and various Soil and Water Conservation districts.
Also, last year, Google pledged a $250,000 grant to the Advance Southwest Iowa entrepreneurial project.
It has been reported that Joe Kava, vice president of data centers at Google said about their relationship with Council Bluffs, “It’s a really welcoming business environment, the local people here in Council Bluffs are amazing, they have embraced us as one theirs. It’s really one of our homes. It’s our community. We’re active members of the community, and it’s been a wonderful relationship and that’s why we’d love to continue to invest here.”
Google Sets Sights Elsewhere in Iowa
Back in March it was reported that Google was named in documents submitted to the Iowa Economic Development Authority for consideration for state incentives for a $576 million data center being planned for Cedar Rapids, Iowa in the Big Cedar Industrial Center.
Google has not announced that they have committed to the project, but as of May 14 a deal was closed on 414 acres of land and and grading of the property has started.
Specific funding plans were announced to help qualify for the state economic incentives, which includes a 20-year, 70-percent tax exemption as long as job creation and employment thresholds are met.
Community betterment payments of $400,000 per data center for 15 years are also included, with a maximum of $6 million per data center, six of which are currently being planned.
Like many large-scale data center projects developers, Google has invested in the local communities, in this case with free laptops to Council Bluff school students and, when informed that not all of the students had Internet access available, expansion of its wireless network to offer free service to the students.
