The tech giant Microsoft has planned to invest at least $1,000,000,000 in Catawba County by building four new data centers throughout the county. The data centers are to be built in Hickory, Conover, and Maiden over the next decade.
Officials and leaders throughout Catawba County met in Hickory to discuss the incentives for bringing such a large investment to the area.
The agreed upon incentives were grants equalling 50% of real-tax value and 85% of personal property tax value paid to Microsoft over the next decade. That means that over the next ten years, Catawba County will essentially be paying back that portion of Microsofts taxes.
Microsoft also has some terms to follow in the deal. Their portion of the
deal includes
A $1 billion minimum investment in Catawba County.
A $332 million minimum investment in each municipality.
An additional $33 million invested in Hickory for a second site, all over 10
years.
The new data centers are supposed to be creating at least 50 new jobs, but those were not the primary goal for the county when pursuing this business relationship. Since Catawba has a low unemployment rate already, the real reason the county was eager to work out a deal with the tech-giant is for the tax benefits associated with the deal.
This new business relationship and economic advantage is a result of a 14-year-old effort to land more data centers in the area, just like other previous data centers from Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Apple- who just expanded theirs last year.
It’s great to live in a community actively striving to bring in more strong businesses to help alleviate some of their tax needs.
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