Apple: Maiden iDataCenter Will be 500,000SF

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The new North Carolina facility will be nearly five times the size of the 109,000 square foot Newark, Calif. data center Apple bought in 2006 to support its growing infrastructure. Apple also operates a data center on its Cupertino, Calif. campus, and has used content delivery networks from Akamai (AKAM) and Limelight Networks (LLNW) to distribute content to its users around the globe

The new site is slated to be built on a 255-acre site in Maiden, bringing 50 full-time jobs and 250 temporary construction jobs to a an area that has been hard hit by the economic downturn. Catawba County has an unemployment rate of 15.5 percent. The Catawba EDC web site has already posted links for local suppliers and prospective employees to contact Apple.

Maiden and Catawba County agreed Monday on $7.3 million in incentives for Apple. The new Apple facility will be the company’s East Coast operations center. A document filed with the state indicates the data center will “take advantage of 3 hour time change on the East Coast to facilitate communications between European operations/sales and California for data transmission.”

The North Carolina Department of Commerce projects that a data center investment of $1 billion would create more than 3,000 jobs in the regional economy, including hundreds of jobs related to construction and others created as a result of economic growth.

The incentive legislation mandated that the data center be located in an economically struggling rural area of the state and pay above-average salaries.