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THE OTHER TOWN IN OREGON
The social media powerhouse was looking at two communities in Oregon. It selected Prineville. Who was that other community?
Ontario was the other community. Out of the entire Northwest, Facebook’s selection process narrowed their choice to two communities. Prineville and Ontario, Oregon.
It was not an accident that they narrowed their choice to these two communities. Just a couple of years ago the Data Center crowd favored the Quincy, Washington area. The Washington legislature decided that a sales tax would apply to the equipment these companies installed in the facilities. Let’s put that in perspective. If the company invests $200M in their facility in a community you are probably looking at $100M for their building and another $100M for the servers and support equipment installed in the building. The sales tax on that $100M investment inside their facilities would be a huge bill. In addition, these companies usually replace the equipment inside their buildings every 3-4 years. No wonder Washington has fallen out of favor.
Your local economic development team has been meeting with a consultant who represents companies like these for over three years. The consultant will arrange to meet locally with state and local economic development officials. They will ask for that team to put together a proposal to convince the company they represent to locate in our community. A typical proposal will cover incentives, utilities (power, telecommunications, natural gas, water and sewer), land including cost, workforce, and proximity to a commercial airport. There are other factors that they ask and require information on but these factors listed are their focus. They always insist on confidentiality when they meet to talk about these companies. Because of the confidentiality, they will assign a codename to the particular project. In the case of Facebook, that codename was Project Vitesse.
We have had several consultants who represent data centers visit our area. Another consultant recently signed a sales agreement with the City of Ontario to secure some land so that they can market and negotiate with companies. When they reach an agreement with a company or maybe two then we will be able to sit down with them, review the incentives we can offer in this area and hopefully reach an agreement that will bring jobs and work to this area.
Facebook will hire about 35 people to work in their facility. That does not seem like a lot but the construction of their facility will involve over a 100 workers and several companies. Those construction jobs will be an important “shot in the arm” for employment in the Prineville area. Additionally with companies like these, there will be some smaller support companies that will follow and open their doors thus bringing more job opportunities.
Ontario’s turn will come. Representatives have been here looking and the economic development team is ready to sit down and negotiate with these companies.