Published: Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2007
We got all Google-eyed and after that, it's just a blur By JOHN MURRELL Oh, how hearts must have raced in Caldwell County, N.C., back in late 2005 when local officials first sniffed the possibility of bringing a Google data center to an area hit hard by declines in the furniture industry. Google! A piece of Silicon Valley magic with a Midas touch! Jobs! High-tech spinoffs! Amusingly decorated cubicles! Politicians, economic development officials, civic leaders all jumped on the chance like a yellow dog on a slab of ribs. And at a press conference in last month, the county proudly announced it had won the bidding with an incentive offer that could be worth more than $260 million over 30 years, among the richest tax-break deals in state history -- all justified, officials said, by the extensive economic benefits to the region. But what did they win and at what cost? On closer look, Google's presence in the town of Lenoir will not quite have the glamor of the Googleplex here. "It's a building filled with computers," said company spokesman Barry Schnitt -- there's nothing that needs to be shipped, packaged or assembled. There will be jobs, 210 of them to keep the servers running and the building secure, but those spinoffs? Said Schnitt, "It depends on how they're defining spin-off businesses. Will there be a need for more hotel rooms during construction? Will a local security firm hire more?" The incentive package payoff, which could amount to $1.24 million per job, pales in comparison to the ripple effect that occurred when Winston-Salem won a Dell computer factory in 2005 with a deal somewhere around $250 million. According to Andrew Brod, director of the office of business and economic research at UNC Greensboro, the Dell plant brought 1,100 jobs and at least six new companies to the area. "The spill-over effects have been phenomenal," Brod said. "Really this (Google) project is just an air-conditioned warehouse to hold computers." So Google must have really played hardball to extract such a sweet deal, right? "We have never had that feeling (that the company was heavy-handed) in all of our discussions with Google," wrote Caldwell County commissioners' Chairwoman Faye Higgins and Lenoir Mayor David Barlow in an open letter. "We characterize our negotiations as tough and hard at times, but always fair." Oh, they were tough, all right -- must have been tough for Google's negotiators to keep from laughing as the locals, without prompting, kept raising their offer. According to documents obtained by the Charlotte Observer, within a period of month, local officials first offered to waive 100 percent of Google's personal property taxes and 80 percent of its real estate taxes for 15 years, then upped it to 20, and then 30 years. And Google didn't even have to ask. "We did not want to be hard to get along with," Higgins said. "We came up with the best offer we could. We had always discussed the 20 years and the 30 years (with Google). And when they said, '`We thought you said 30,' we said, 'Well, here's 30,' because this is a really good thing." Well, the deal may stink, but at least server farms don't smell like manure. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TELECOM-CITIES Current searchable archives (Feb. 1, 2006 to present) at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Old searchble archives at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
