4 ms·

> The company also projects that it will create 2,300 jobs during the 18–24 month construction window. The number I've heard so far for project cost is 600 mil

> The company also projects that it will create 2,300 jobs during the 18–24 month construction window. The number I've heard so far for project cost is 600 million dollars. You can figure roughly 300-350 million dollars going into the pockets of the local workers directly (2 years of labor [4160 hours] for 2300 people @ 35/hr), which is a rough average of MN prevailing wage determinations for trade workers if you account for the 20 -30 trades that will work on a project like this. The state benefits by bringing a highly-visible employer to an exurban area, even if it is only 50 full time jobs. They get an anchor tenant of sorts that may attract other real estate development and business in the area. There are plenty of benefits to be gained on a 20 million investment. Note, most of the labor will be local union tradespeople who pay state taxes and spend their money in the state. Disclaimer: My company will be bidding one (or multiple) part(s) of the construction part of this project.

supernovae 8y ago
Every data center I visit is always established in an economically depressed area by design. No one wants their data center costs to be increased because of massive commercial growth outside the scope of needing internet and power. The bulk of data center jobs are for 50 trade skill type people but all of the brogrammers and developers will be in major cities working remotely since no one these days gets or needs access to any facilities and it won't be long before those 50 people are replaced by robots. This is google after all.
- chrisco255 8y ago
  There's no need to disparage software devs as brogrammers, especially in this context.
  - supernovae 8y ago
    Not sure why you felt the need to be offended.
    - chrisco255 8y ago
      Because your comment adds nothing to the discussion and flattens people based on some dumb trope. It's just cynical junk thinking.
      - supernovae 8y ago
        Apparently, I offended you. I am sorry to offend you. My goal is not to offend you but to mock a culture I find appalling just as I mock the concept of granting tax incentives to hugely profitable companies as offensive. Humor is how I cope with a world where daily news is talking about extreme poverty, extreme profit and very little for those - who may be like you or me well in the middle who are pawns in these games that see little to no reward and end up being 0 sum in the grand scheme of things. yes, i could have said programmers and most people will read it as programmers but truth be told, to the good people of this town - they're going to see these programmers as elites making money off their taxes when it comes to the time to those tax revenues matter... you know, when these companies inevitably ask for more because they got it to begin with
        chrisco255 8y ago
        https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/02/25/wind-energy-tax-breaks-sought-to-bring-google-to-becker-minnesota https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/02/25/wind-energy-tax-bre... Look, the incentives are reductions in property taxes for building a $600 million data center powered by carbon-free electricity. That's 2.5% of the total investment into the property. The city and state will still pull in tax revenue from Google in the form of property taxes over the 20+ years it will run for. Besides that and more to your point, coming from a small town myself, they're going to see these data center employees as peers and neighbors that spend money at their restaurants, retail, and other businesses supporting the local economy. Economics is not a zero sum game.
        supernovae 8y ago
        Those benefits don't have to come at the potential cost and risk to taxpayers though. If Google needs a datacenter they should open a data center - a city shouldn't have to incentivize and already profitable company. Economics makes no sense if the success requires incentives to those already winning. growth is good, opportunity is good - not a single one of us disputes that. Google doesn't need taxpayer incentives to grow or remain competitive. They're getting a discount on driving up the value of land and cost of living for local people when the real winners won't be anywhere near the datacenter and the company will cary an asset on their books worth much more money than what it cost them to build on the backs of tax payers who won't have the same experience of abated property values. at least google is honest about school taxes... so yay, they're not screwing that over but meh.. the whole policy of tax payers funding winners and losers with games only big corporations are allowed to play BLOWS.
erentz 8y ago
> 2 years of labor [4160 hours] for 2300 people @ 35/hr It says 2,300 jobs created over 18-24 months but not the duration of those jobs so we have to be careful assuming that’s 4160 hours per job.

supernovae 8y ago

Every data center I visit is always established in an economically depressed area by design. No one wants their data center costs to be increased because of massive commercial growth outside the scope of needing internet and power. The bulk of data center jobs are for 50 trade skill type people but all of the brogrammers and developers will be in major cities working remotely since no one these days gets or needs access to any facilities and it won't be long before those 50 people are replaced by robots. This is google after all.

chrisco255 8y ago
There's no need to disparage software devs as brogrammers, especially in this context.
- supernovae 8y ago
  Not sure why you felt the need to be offended.
  - chrisco255 8y ago
    Because your comment adds nothing to the discussion and flattens people based on some dumb trope. It's just cynical junk thinking.
    - supernovae 8y ago
      Apparently, I offended you. I am sorry to offend you. My goal is not to offend you but to mock a culture I find appalling just as I mock the concept of granting tax incentives to hugely profitable companies as offensive. Humor is how I cope with a world where daily news is talking about extreme poverty, extreme profit and very little for those - who may be like you or me well in the middle who are pawns in these games that see little to no reward and end up being 0 sum in the grand scheme of things. yes, i could have said programmers and most people will read it as programmers but truth be told, to the good people of this town - they're going to see these programmers as elites making money off their taxes when it comes to the time to those tax revenues matter... you know, when these companies inevitably ask for more because they got it to begin with
      - chrisco255 8y ago
        https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/02/25/wind-energy-tax-breaks-sought-to-bring-google-to-becker-minnesota https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/02/25/wind-energy-tax-bre... Look, the incentives are reductions in property taxes for building a $600 million data center powered by carbon-free electricity. That's 2.5% of the total investment into the property. The city and state will still pull in tax revenue from Google in the form of property taxes over the 20+ years it will run for. Besides that and more to your point, coming from a small town myself, they're going to see these data center employees as peers and neighbors that spend money at their restaurants, retail, and other businesses supporting the local economy. Economics is not a zero sum game.
        supernovae 8y ago
        Those benefits don't have to come at the potential cost and risk to taxpayers though. If Google needs a datacenter they should open a data center - a city shouldn't have to incentivize and already profitable company. Economics makes no sense if the success requires incentives to those already winning. growth is good, opportunity is good - not a single one of us disputes that. Google doesn't need taxpayer incentives to grow or remain competitive. They're getting a discount on driving up the value of land and cost of living for local people when the real winners won't be anywhere near the datacenter and the company will cary an asset on their books worth much more money than what it cost them to build on the backs of tax payers who won't have the same experience of abated property values. at least google is honest about school taxes... so yay, they're not screwing that over but meh.. the whole policy of tax payers funding winners and losers with games only big corporations are allowed to play BLOWS.

erentz 8y ago

> 2 years of labor [4160 hours] for 2300 people @ 35/hr It says 2,300 jobs created over 18-24 months but not the duration of those jobs so we have to be careful assuming that’s 4160 hours per job.