The endless Prineville speculation is over and Apple’s secret code-named “Maverick” project is no longer a whispered rumor.
According to documents filed last week at the Crook County Clerk’s office, Apple has flashed its cash and bought a previously-optioned 160-acre parcel of land south of Baldwin Court for the tidy sum of $5.6 million. This brings to a close the debate over where Apple would lay down its growing roots for the site of a planned new data center in the shadow of Facebook’s neighborhood info-farm. For reasons of confidentiality with the late Steve Job’s electronics giant, details of the transaction were not disclosed by county officials. Prineville City Manager Steve Forrester and Crook County Economic Development Manager Jason Carr declined to comment on the exciting purchase.
Cupertino-based Apple, the world’s biggest technology corporation, had been eyeing Prineville as a potential home for a colossal cloud computing and iTunes data castle. Their expansive network is growing due to the universal popularity of its sleek iPads, iPhones and iCloud storage services. Its new billion-dollar data center in Maiden, North Carolina weighs in at a titanic 500,000 square feet and includes a 100-acre solar panel field and biofuel boiler. These green technologies will help reduce the mega-facility’s ravenous power consumption by nearly ten percent. A small spark when compared to its monstrous 60-megawatt appetite. No exact planning details have arisen as to the next Prineville powerhouse and its dimensions but the size and power usage could be similar to Maiden.
These massive server farms that keep the signals churning and latest tech devices smiling are perfectly suited to Oregon due to its inexpensive power grid, mild weather allowing more cost-effective evaporative cooling and alluring tax-free enticements worth tens of millions of dollars.
Planning officials expected a decision by January whether Apple wished to extend their option or pack up and look elsewhere. Bill Zelenka, Crook County’s planning director, claimed Apple had not asked for an option extension as the deadline approached and passed last year. But truly, who is not going to cooperate with Apple and allow them the widest possible latitude and amenable considerations? Not Prineville!
Back in early December, the Prineville City Council voted to annex Apple’s proposed playground of 160-acres of prime Crook County land, enabling it to develop and provide sewer and water services to the site. Corporate manipulation, competitive advantage and wildfire media speculation made it necessary to keep a cloak on things until the option was exercised and the contract ink dried. “Project Vitesse” was the secret name Facebook came up with for its future Prineville data center. Vitesse being the French word for “speed,” and the name of Facebook operations director Tom Furlong’s boat.
Data centers are not huge adrenalin shots for local employment statistics and require minimal management, relying mostly on automation to operate its army of autonomous servers and blinking computers. However, the construction opportunities for local workers, contractors and sub-contractors do provide a temporary breath of fresh digital air from Crook County’s hefty 15-percent unemployment rate.
However you slice it, Prineville’s deal with the titans of Apple is a shiny New Year’s gift that hopefully will blossom into ripe economic fruit for Central Oregon.
