Will Prineville’s latest mystery project please step forward? With Apple firmly planting itself in Central Oregon soil with February’s announcement of a planned data center beside Facebook’s massive installation, the neighborhood may be getting even more crowded with the addition of a third tenant, codenamed: Project Jasper. Speculation has run rampant as to the identity of the project’s parent company with names being tossed out from Amazon to Microsoft. Silence remains deafening.
With hushed mouths from the City of Prineville and Crook County officials due to a strict confidentiality agreement with the interested party, information has been scarce, but one name is starting to stand out as the possible frontrunner in the current lands stake race – Rackspace. The San Antonio-based data hosting firm was close to a land deal to build a center on 99 acres at the Port of Morrow on the Columbia River, near Amazon’s new facilities. With recent power upgrade commitments from the Bonneville Power Administration, Rackspace has now turned its gaze back to Prineville after discovering the severe limitations of Morrow’s power supply.
Apple Inc. recently purchased a 160-acre parcel from Crook County for $5.6 million and is now constructing a small, 10,000 square-foot server farm to help bolster its cloud computing platform and iTunes segments. Facebook’s titanic, 333,000 square-foot data center debuted last year and the social networking juggernaut is fast at work on a second building to match, with plans for a potential third structure approved as part of its deal with the city.
Jason Carr, Crook County coordinator with Economic Development of Central Oregon has repeatedly acknowledged the magnetic presence of Facebook on the Prineville landscape as a huge factor leading to negotiations with other curious companies wishing to set up shop in the High Desert.
Whether the cloaked corporation turns out to be Rackspace, or a partnered subsidiary, Jasper had been diligently scouting sites in Oregon since last September and was thought to have shelved its plans to relocate to Central Oregon, but may be flipping back to take a closer look at a proposed site on Millican Road, just down the street from Facebook’s primary center. More confusion enters into the equation when the codeword “cloud” has been whispered in previous Rackspace scouting ventures, casting some doubt on exactly who Project Jasper truly is.
This renewed flood of interest has all been due to BPA’s and Pacific Power’s decision to kickstart the completion of the Ponderosa substation in Prineville ahead of schedule, adding 400 megawatts of electrical grid capacity. The substation, originally scheduled to finish its expansion in June 2013, will now be completed in January.
While Rackspace has denied direct involvement in any designs to build a data center themselves, speculation has arisen that they are working with a wholesale data provider or independent developer on a project which Rackspace would then lease from, a more economical option.
Whatever the outcome and whoever the exact players eventually turn out to be, one thing is certain – more juice equals more data centers. As the masquerade continues, clusters of humming digital delivery sites seem the bright path of the future for Prineville and other Central Oregon communities. Tech is here to stay.
