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Catawba hopes to be site of Apple center
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Published: July 4, 2009
MAIDEN - Area officials will make a major economic-development announcement on Monday, but still won't say if it concerns the location of Apple Inc.'s new $1 billion data center.
The Maiden Town Council will join representatives of the Catawba County Board of Commissioners to make an announcement at 5:30 p.m. Monday at the Maiden Recreation Center on East Klutz Street.
Mayor Bob Smyre said Wednesday that representatives of the Catawba County Economic Development Corp. will make an announcement at the public meeting, but would not reveal details.
Scott Millar, the president of the Economic Development Corp., would not say if the planned announcement concerns Apple or any other company coming to Catawba County.
Gov. Bev Perdue announced June 3 that Apple had selected North Carolina as the site for a new data center. The technology giant is expected to invest $1 billion in the project over nine years.
Catawba County has two sites near Maiden that are suitable for data centers, and the Economic Development Corp. has been marketing them for that purpose.
The 183-acre WestStar Mission Critical Business Park is being developed off Startown Road near its intersection with U.S. 321. The other Catawba County site includes a 156,000-square-foot former Carolina Mills building with up to 100 acres. Both sites offer access to large amounts of power and water, which data centers typically require.
Perdue's June 3 announcement came two days after the state legislature agreed to special tax breaks targeting Apple and the same day the governor signed the incentives bill into law.
Catawba County is thought to be the front-runner for the data center, but neither Apple nor the N.C. Department of Commerce have said where it will be built.
The data center will employ at least 50 people full time. Perdue's office said that the center could generate another 250 jobs for people providing services to the plant, and more than 3,000 related jobs for the region around the site.
■ John Dayberry is a staff writer with the Hickory Daily Record.
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