Forest City, N.C., was once known as Burnt Chimney. But smokestacks are definitely a thing of the past, thanks to the social media giant Facebook, which is investing another $200 million to expand its data center campus there with a third, 480,000-sf building.
Construction reportedly is underway in Forest City, which lies between Asheville, N.C., and Greenville, S.C.
In a blog he posted on Facebook, Keven McCammon, the data center’s site manager, said that construction would add to a project that already has created “thousands of jobs in the regional economy and millions of dollars in economic impact.”
There’s no question that Facebook’s presence has been a boon to Forest City and its 7,400 local residents. The company invested $450 million into the first two buildings that each span 300,000 sf. RTI International, a firm Facebook retained to measure its economic impact, found that between 2011 and 2013 the data center had generated a total gross economic impact of $707 million and supported 5,000 jobs in North Carolina.
And since 2011, Facebook has awarded an estimated $575,000 to schools and qualified nonprofits in Rutherford County, where Forest City is located. Facebook recently agreed to support a pilot program to provide free WiFi access to 75 to 100 students in the local school district.
Office space at Facebook's data center in Forest City.
Facebook, along with other tech companies, has favored North Carolina for its data center because of the state’s low-cost, reliable and available power, relatively inexpensive land, available water (at Forest City, Facebook is deploying evaporative cooling, which requires mist spray to cool the air as it enters the facility), proximity to East Coast customers, and generous tax incentives.
In June, Facebook announced plans to build a third data center on its campus in Altoona, Iowa, where its first data center there was already operational and a second was under construction. One month later, it broke ground on construction of a data center in Fort Worth, Texas, for which the company will invest $500 million in three 250,000-sf buildings. That data center, when it opens next year, will be powered entirely by wind power.
Facebook was the recipient of a $146.7 million incentive package from Fort Worth to locate its data center there. The Associated Press reports that state governments across the country over the past decade have extended nearly $1.5 billion in tax incentives to hundreds of data center projects initiated by various tech companies.
Facebook also has data centers in Pineville, Ore., and Lulea, Sweden.
Related Stories
| May 3, 2014
4 easy steps to being a great project manager
Managing a team of people, especially creative people, is a task that not everyone is up for. Keeping your team on the same page while maintaining a schedule and budget that can keep your corporation happy will take confidence and bountiful people skills. Here are some tips for effectively managing a project. SPONSORED CONTENT
| May 1, 2014
Super BIM: 7 award-winning BIM/VDC-driven projects
Thom Mayne's Perot Museum of Nature and Science and Anaheim's new intermodal center are among the 2014 AIA TAP BIM Award winners.
| Apr 23, 2014
Ahead of the crowd: How architects can utilize crowdsourcing for project planning
Advanced methods of data collection, applied both prior to design and after opening, are bringing a new focus to the entire planning process.
Sponsored | | Apr 17, 2014
Technology enables state transportation agency to make the leap to digital design review
Earlier this month, my colleague and I presented a session to a group of civil engineers and transportation agencies about the tech trends in the AEC space. Along with advice on how to prepare your plan for controlled collaboration, we also talked through some practical use cases. One such use case was especially interesting, as it outlined a challenge not unfamiliar to government agencies who are contemplating the leap from paper to digital processes: how to securely migrate workflows.
| Apr 10, 2014
Submit Your Project for a Bluebeam eXtreme Award!
Bluebeam is holding the second annual Bluebeam eXtreme Awards at the 2014 Bluebeam eXtreme Conference in Hollywood, Calf.
| Apr 3, 2014
Security, accountability, and cloud access: Can you really have it all?
I’ve heard countless stories of conversations between project engineers and IT professionals who can’t come to an agreement on the level of security needed to protect their data while making it more accessible—not only externally, but also internally.
| Apr 2, 2014
New Autodesk software allows visualization of more realistic bridge concepts
The Autodesk InfraWorks 360 family of offerings now includes enhanced roads and highways capabilities, better representations of graphical information, and fixed-length pipe modeling capability.
| Mar 26, 2014
Zaha Hadid's glimmering 'cultural hub of Seoul' opens with fashion, flair [slideshow]
The new space, the Dongdaemun Design Plaza, is a blend of park and cultural spaces meant for the public to enjoy.
| Mar 20, 2014
Fluor defines the future 7D deliverable without losing sight of real results today
A fascinating client story by Fluor SVP Robert Prieto reminds us that sometimes it’s the simplest details that can bring about real results today—and we shouldn’t overlook them, even as we push to change the future state of project facilitation.
| Mar 12, 2014
New CannonDesign database allows users to track facility assets
The new software identifies critical failures of components and systems, code and ADA-compliance issues, and systematically justifies prudent expenditures.
