Google announced in early March that it received approval to start work on an expansion of its Georgia data center complex west of Atlanta.
The tech giant is moving forward with a plan to spend approximately $300 million to add extra space to its Atlanta data center, after commissioners in Douglas County approved a property tax exemption for the project.
The terms of the data center tax incentive call for Google to receive a 10-year exemption from property taxes in return for an additional investment in equipment and real estate in the area. Douglas County and the tech company have entered into a payment in lieu of taxes agreement in which Google will pay $1.2 million to the county over the next 24 months.
Not only is the Georgia data center expansion popular with officials because it brings money into Douglas County, but it is also poised to create dozens of jobs in the area.
"In addition to Google's investment in real estate and equipment for the project, it would also add more than 25 technical jobs," said Douglas County Economic Development Authority Executive Director Chris Pumphrey. "When Google made its original investment in Douglas County a decade ago, they committed to 100 jobs at the facility and their work force now exceeds 350 employees."
Now that the expansion has been approved by county commissioners, Google executives will have to finalize the project guidelines which can take up to a month, according to Pumphrey.
As well as operating a computing facility in Georgia, Google has 12 other sites worldwide, including five U.S. data centers, a Chile data center, two Asia data centers, two Scandinavian data centers, a Belgium data center and an Ireland data center.
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