eBay Picks Utah for $334 Million Data Center

Online auction site eBay has chosen a suburb of Salt Lake City as the site for a $334 million data center project. The company said yesterday that it has purchased land in South Jordan, Utah in the Daybreak Commerce Park, not far from where Oracle Corp. (ORCL) is building a huge data center.

The two projects have raised the profile of Utah as a destination for large data centers. As was the case with Oracle, eBay will take advantage of generous incentives from the local government. The state Office of Economic Development offered eBay $27.3 million in tax incentives over 10 years to build the facility in Utah, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

eBay (EBAY) was known to be focusing its data center search on the Southwest, including sites in Phoenix, Arizona and Utah. The facility, which could be as large as 250,000 square feet, would continue a regional expansion that has seen eBay acquire a large data center in Phoenix and expand its facility in Denver. The company is believed to have six data centers, including facilities in San Jose, Sacramento and Austin, Texas.

The data center is expected to create about 50 jobs with wages averaging $49,200 a year, about 50 percent above the Salt Lake County annual median wage. eBay said it chose Utah because it already had a relationship with the state through a call center it operates in the state.

Utah is not known for housing huge data centers, but has become home to a growing number of web hosts and enterprise data centers, including facilities for Center 7, ViaWest, WestHost and TierFour (UVNet) are among the companies that have built or acquired data centers in Utah in the past several years. A 2007 study by the Kauffman Foundation found that Utah led the nation in “economic dynamism” based on a strong concentration of fast-growing technology startups.

eBay last expanded its network in 2006, when it bought the former Switch-X data center in Phoenix for $16.3 million. The company cited the location’s low exposure to natural disasters as an important factor in its selection of the 135,000 square foot building. Utah also has a low probability of earthquakes and other disasters.