[Cialug] Well, it's official

Tue Jun 19 10:43:59 CDT 2007

OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

Governor Chet Culver « Lt.
Governor Patty Judge

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 19, 2007 

Contact: Brad Anderson

(515) 281-0173

GOVERNOR CULVER AND
GOOGLE ANNOUNCE $600 MILLION DATA
CENTER IN COUNCIL BLUFFS

New Information Technology Facility Will
Create 200 Jobs in Iowa

COUNCIL
BLUFFS – Gov. Chet Culver and Google Inc. today announced plans for the company
to open a data center in Council
  Bluffs, Iowa. Google
Inc. is investing $600 million and will eventually create 200
jobs at the facility powering the company's services. 

"We're
thrilled to announce our plans for a data center in Council Bluffs,
Iowa, which will help us continue to provide our users and customers with
the best possible service,” said Paul Froutan, Director of Operations, Google
Inc. “We look forward to joining the community and are grateful for the support
from the state and local governments throughout our evaluation process.”

Google's
data center is under construction now on a 55-acre site at the Council Bluffs
Industrial Foundation’s new business park and is anticipated to
open spring 2009. 

Jobs
at the Google data center will focus on ensuring that the facility’s computers
are running at optimum speed and efficiency 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Positions require a variety of skills, ranging from experienced data center
managers and Linux administrators to technology assistants. The jobs have an
average salary and other benefits equal to about $50,000 per year,
creating an annual payroll of about $10 million. 

Last
month, Gov. Culver signed a bill upgrading Iowa’s tax system related to sales tax, use
tax, and property tax for computer related businesses. The state legislature's
work exempts the electricity and capital investment necessary for this kind of
a facility from sales tax, as is common in the manufacturing sector. 

"We
are very proud to welcome Google to Iowa,"
said Governor Chet Culver.  “In making its decision, Google recognized
what we in Iowa
have known all along – our workforce and quality of life is
second-to-none. I am absolutely committed to doing everything I can to
bring high-quality, 21st century jobs to Iowa, and the Google jobs we are announcing
today certainly qualify.”

MORE

PAGE 2 – DATA CENTER IN COUNCIL BLUFFS 

Google Inc. will pay an
estimated $65 million in
property taxes over the next 15 years. This revenue is the equivalent of
the property tax collected annually from 3,771 homeowners, based on the median
property taxes paid in 2000. Google also will pay an estimated $6
million in sales taxes in just the next 2 years from the purchase
of building materials, hundreds of thousands of dollars per
year in electricity franchise fees and income, payroll and other
taxes when operating the facility.

Google
Inc. has made a concentrated effort to use as many local vendors and suppliers
as possible so that the economic impact of this investment will have the
greatest benefit. In fact, the company has hired local engineering and
construction firms for the preparation and building of the data center site so
that this investment becomes not just an economic entity, but also a good
neighbor in the community. 

“We
are very pleased that Google selected Council
  Bluffs for such a large investment.” said Bob Mundt, President and CEO of the Council Bluffs
Area Chamber of Commerce. “I think it demonstrates that all the hard work the
community has put in to make Council
  Bluffs an attractive place for business has paid off.”

###

Google’s Iowa
Project Fact Sheet

Investment

·     Planned investment of
$600 million for a data center project -- two facilities, including retrofit of
an existing vacant industrial building.  Construction has already begun on
the first facility  and we plan to begin
the second once the first is completed.

·     Investment includes
purchase of the existing building, land, site preparation and infrastructure,
construction, computers, and other equipment. 

·     Expansions are
possible, but the company has no definite plans at this time.

Location

·    
Location: 3 parcels (of about 55, 130, and 1000 acres,
respectively) for a total of approximately 1185 acres. This provides extensive
room for growth beyond the 2 data center buildings that are currently
planned.  The building currently under construction is on the 55 acre
parcel.  We are still evaluating the development potential of the other
two parcels and we look forward to working with the city of Council
 Bluffs, Pottawattamie
 County, and CBIF on the
evaluation.   

Jobs

·     Once fully
operational, Google expects the data center complex to be staffed by up to 200
workers. 

·     Full-time Google
employees will earn an average salary and benefits equal to about
$50,000.  These positions include Facilities Support (HVAC, maintenance),
Systems Administration (software technicians) and Data Center Technicians. 

·     Additional support
services will be retained via contract (security, catering, grounds keeping,
etc.). 

Facilities

·     A data center, in very
simple terms, is a specialized building that contains a lot of computers – the
machines that run Google's services.  

·     Google is building new
data centers to support the strong and growing demand for its online services.

·     Planning to start
operation in part of first facility by Spring 2009

Economic Impact

·     The project will bring
around 200 permanent jobs (if not more from possible future expansions, if
any), many more jobs from the construction, more demand for supplies and
services from local businesses, and a substantial increase in the tax base. 

·     During the initial
phase of construction, our contractors will likely be staffing up locally,
utilizing local subcontractors and patronizing local businesses.  We
believe the project will spur additional new business interest and activity in
this area.

Background

Google has a strategic interest in
the central region of the United
  States.  The region is a busy
crossroads of Internet activity, and Google has had to make sure it can process
requests from customers and prospective customers living in or traveling
through this broad and diverse region.  In late 2006, the company looked
at states from the Appalachians to the Rocky Mountains as possible hosts for
data center facilities before deciding to start the project in Council Bluffs. 
Another project near Pryor,
 Oklahoma was also recently announced.

Economic Development Incentives 

·    
Statutory Sales Tax Exemption on Computers 

·    
Recently enacted statutory sales tax and property tax
exemption for cooling systems, power infrastructure, generators, electricity
and other equipment for web search portals that invest at least $200M.

·     Local property tax
rebate through 2024, which we expect to average about 51% of our real property
taxes based on our plans and the schedules laid out in the agreement with the
City of Council Bluffs. 
Despite any rebates, we still expect to pay about $65 million in real property
taxes (city% and county% - TBD) over the next 15 years.  

Taxes Google will pay (after all
economic development incentives)

·    
Property taxes: we expect to pay about $65 million in real
property taxes (city% and county% - TBD)

·     Sales tax: Estimated
$6 million in just the next 2 years from the purchase of building materials

·     Local electricity
franchise fees: Hundreds of thousands of dollars per year

·     Other: Payroll taxes
(with the exception of any rebates obtained through the Targeted Jobs
Withholding Program, if any), sales tax from non-exempted purchases, corporate
income taxes.

Google Fact Sheet

About Google   

·                 
Google was founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry
Page and Sergey Brin in a garage in Menlo
  Park, CA.  Now a
top web property in all major global markets, Google's innovative search technologies connect millions of people around the
world with information every day. 

·                 
Google's breakthrough technology and continued innovation
serve the company's mission of "organizing the world's information and
making it universally accessible and useful."  

·                 
Google is a play on the word googol, which refers to the
number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google's use of the
term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense, seemingly infinite
amount of information available on the web.

Our Employees and Offices

·                 
Google has seen tremendous growth in recent years. 
Today, Google employs roughly 12,000 people worldwide.  

·                 
Google is headquartered in Silicon Valley and maintains 40
sales, operations, and engineering offices worldwide, including New York, Ann Arbor, Atlanta, Chicago, London, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, and     Sydney.

·                 
In December 2006, Google’s unique corporate culture earned
it the title of Fortune Magazine’s #1 Place to Work. 

Our Business Model

·                 
Google's earns most of its revenue from its targeted
advertising program, AdWords, which is the largest and fastest growing in the
industry.

·                 
Google also brings our best-of-breed consumer technologies
to businesses with our simple, powerful communication and collaboration tools
for business, Google Apps Premium Edition. 

Our Products

·                 
In addition to the Google Search Engine, Google also offers
a suite of online consumer products, such as our free web-based word processing
and spreadsheet program, Docs&Spreadsheets, and our free webmail service,
Gmail. 

·                 
Fast, innovative products are crucial for our users and
require significant computing power.  Google invests heavily in technical
facilities and has dozens of facilities around the world with many computers. 

About the Founders

Sergey Brin, Co-Founder & President, Technology 

Sergey Brin, a native of Moscow,
received a bachelor of science degree with honors in mathematics and computer
science from the University of Maryland at College
  Park. He is currently on leave from the Ph.D. program
in computer science at Stanford
 University, where he
received his master's degree.  It was at Stanford where he met Larry Page
and worked on the project that became Google.  Sergey continues to share
responsibility for day-to-day operations with Larry Page and C.E.O. Eric
Schmidt.

Larry Page, Co-Founder & President, Products

Larry Page was Google's founding CEO and grew the company to
more than 200 employees and profitability before moving into his role as
President, Products in April 2001. He continues to share responsibility for
Google's day-to-day operations with Eric Schmidt and Sergey Brin.  Larry
earned a bachelor of science degree in engineering from University of Michigan,
with a concentration on computer engineering.  Larry went on leave from
Stanford after earning his master's degree.

Contacts

Google in Council Bluffs

Council
  Bluffs Area Chamber of Commerce

Mark Norman, Vice President of
Economic Development

712.325.1000

bmundt at councilbluffsiowa.com

Iowa Department of Economic Development

Mike Tramontina, Director

515.242.4720

director at iowalifechanging.com

MidAmerican Energy
Company

Todd Raba, President

515.242.4300

tmraba at midamerican.com

Office of the Iowa
Governor

Brad
Anderson, Communications Director

515.281.0173

brad.anderson at iowa.gov

###

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