Vineyards Data Center Park, Incentives and Features Your C-Suite Should Know About, Part 1

With shirt-sleeves rolled-up, and a passion to deliver a highly progressive development, the project at Vineyards Data Center Park in Colorado Springs, Colorado has achieved remarkable strides. Local and Federal zoning and incentives, along with the inherent features and benefits of the region’s geography, combine with an insightful green design platform. Any single piece of this puzzle presents the CFO crowd with a very attractive decision point on the next home for their ever expanding data center requirements, let alone the bundled package presented.

The scope of the nearly $1B development spans 105 acres situated 60 miles south of Denver, and southeast of Interstate 25 and Circle Drive. Some 800,000 sq ft of data center space will ultimately be available in a region that is already populated with other corporate facilities for Verizon Wireless, HP, FedEx, T. Rowe Price, Progressive, Agilent, Intel and most recently Walmart. Vision for the site includes single occupancy, wholly owned or leased buildings, colocation and traditional data center support services. The concept also includes data center pods sized at about 3000 sqft, as well as large campus spaces.

A Chain of Public – Private Partnering: Key Steps in the Advancement of the Project

Many state governments are now chasing business with aggressive incentives. The Colorado Springs development especially benefits from a number of fortunate events that have been put into play.

• Designated Urban Renewal Site
• Qualified as an Enterprise Zone
• Recipient of Federal New Market Tax Credits

Last year, the Vineyard’s land was designated an Urban Renewal site when the Colorado Springs City Council unanimously approved creation of the special taxing district. This move makes available $55 million in public funds by applying future tax revenues on the property to pay for improvements such as telecommunications infrastructure, utility improvements and roads.

In an effort to attract new business to locate to the region the project site has been qualified as an Enterprise Zone, allowing for investment tax credits on the purchase of capitalized equipment and furnishings.

Additionally, the site is a recipient of federal government based New Market Tax Credits. This program is also another tool aimed at revitalizing impoverished communities. Tax credit incentives are available to investors amounting to 39% of the investment paid out – over a period of seven years. All together, the combination of financing and NMTC brings a reduction of the capital cost of constructing a data center at the Vineyards to an estimated 40 to 50% of comparable sites.

In a follow-up blog, we’ll discuss additional features of the project design. While the attractive incentives bundled make a compelling story and competitive business option against any other prospective US sites, an equal wealth of environmental friendly design considerations have gone into the overall planning, from renewable energy to grey water reuse. A theme of sustainability appears to make a great compliment to the concepts scalability and affordability.

For more information CLICK HERE to visit the Vinyard Data Center Listing on the WiredRE web site.

Originally published on Broadband Nation.