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T5 Data Centers starts construction of Hillsboro server farms [The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.](Oregonian (Portland, OR) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Sept. 17--T5 Data Centers, a Georgia company that leases space in server farms it owns around the country, said Wednesday that it's begun construction of a new, 200,000-square-foot facility in Hillsboro. T5 announced plans for the project in 2012 and had originally planned to start construction last year. The facility at the corner of Evergreen and Brookwood is expected to open early next summer. The company rates it as an 18 megawatt project, meaning that it has the capacity to draw as much power as 13,000 Northwest homes. One large, unidentified "Fortune 100" client has already leased the entirety of one building in the project, according to T5. The company is also seeking tenants for the second, 110,000-square-foot building. Data centers employ relatively few people -- T5 initially estimated that "several dozen" would work in the completed facility. T5 is building in an "enterprise zone," meaning that the expensive computers inside the data center -- it can cost hundreds of millions of dollars to equip a facility this size -- are exempt from the property taxes that other Oregon businesses pay. That can be worth tens of millions of dollars annually to a large data center, and is one of the key selling points T5 is touting for its project. Similar tax breaks have made the state an attractive destination for a variety of major technology companies: Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple all have large data centers in Oregon. Adobe Systems, Digital Realty Trust, Viawest and Fortune Data Centers also have data centers in Hillsboro enterprise zones. Intel has a large data center at its Jones Farm campus in Hillsboro that is not in an enterprise zone. -- Mike Rogoway; twitter: @rogoway; 503-294-7699 ___ (c)2014 The Oregonian (Portland, Ore.) Visit The Oregonian (Portland, Ore.) at www.oregonian.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |