Yahoo! asks for site approval, tax break in Town of Lockport
But choice of Niagara County for data center not final
Published: June 12, 2009, 12:30 am
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LOCKPORT — The deal even has a code name: “Project Pilgrim.”
But it means as many as 125 high-tech jobs for Niagara County.
The Town of Lockport announced Thursday that Internet giant Yahoo! has applied for site plan approval and a property tax break for a massive $150 million data center in the town industrial park.
Town Attorney Daniel E. Seaman emphasized, “This is not a done deal.”
“We haven’t made a final decision,” Yahoo! spokeswoman Kim Rubey said. “We’re in discussion with other states. . . . There are multiple stages of the process.”
Asked why Yahoo! would apply for site plan approval and a tax break in Lockport if it still was considering other sites, Rubey said, “I can’t elaborate on that.”
But the town is ready to fast-track the applications in hopes of nailing the deal.
After a closed-door briefing this week, the Planning Board added the project to its agenda for a meeting at 7:30 p. m. Wednesday. And the town already has scheduled a public hearing on the site plan at 4 p.m. June 30.
The town Industrial Development Agency, which received the same briefing in executive session Thursday morning, will hold a hearing June 30 or July 1 on the tax break, Seaman said.
“We suspect we’ll hear from the Yahoo! board of directors in early July,” Lockport Supervisor Marc R. Smith said.
He cited the town’s willingness to
move quickly on the project as one reason for the action by Yahoo!
Others included the availability of a “shovel-ready” site in the industrial park and the allocation of 15 megawatts of electricity from the State Power Authority.
“The receipt of the application from Yahoo! and scheduling the public hearing is just one more step in the process of reaching an agreement with Yahoo!,” Smith said. “We are hopeful at the conclusion of this process that Yahoo! will be bringing its investment and jobs to Western New York.”
After Gov. David A. Paterson announced the power allocation May 19, Lockport, Cambria and Pembroke were described as the three leading candidates for the project.
State Sen. George D. Maziarz, R-Newfane, said he understood that the industrial park’s infrastructure — electricity, roads, water and sewer lines — was key to the company’s decision- making.
“Pembroke was vacant land. They liked it because it was close to the Thruway. But they’d have been starting from scratch,” Maziarz said. He added that another site, at Lockport and Comstock roads in Cambria, had similar drawbacks.
“This just goes to show that when you put pressure on the Power Authority, as I have and Congressman [Brian] Higgins has, they’re going to be more responsive,” Maziarz said. “I’m happy that they decided to go into Lockport, but we should have an announcement like this every week, with the hydropower we produce in Niagara.”
The Buffalo News reported May 21 that the low-cost power will save Yahoo! $101.2 million over the 15-year life of the allocation. That works out to power subsidies of $809,940 for every $50,000-a-year job created by Yahoo!
“These jobs are good jobs. They’re high-paying jobs,” Smith said. “We’ve been told 75 jobs in Phase 1.”
Yahoo! wants to break ground in August, with a completion target date of September 2010, Smith said.
Rubey said the data center “mostly hosts our servers and platforms for our properties.”
Smith said the Yahoo! data center will cover about 190,000 square feet. Seaman said it will be located on a 30-acre parcel bounded by Junction Road, Crown and Enterprise drives.
But he said talks continue on whether Yahoo! will buy or lease that site, and what the price should be. Also, the terms of the tax break — how long it will be, and how much Yahoo! will pay instead of full-value taxation — also are unsettled, Seaman said.
After the closed-door session at Wednesday’s Planning Board meeting, word about the deal began to leak out, to the point that town officials felt they had to announce it, even though Town Economic Development Coordinator David R. Kinyon had signed a confidentiality agreement with Yahoo!
“This is at a point where it has to go public,” Seaman said. “We can’t take public action in private. We’d never do that.”
Seaman said Yahoo! first contacted the town in March. Planning Board Chairman Richard Forsey said he was let in on the secret June 4 at a meeting with Smith, Seaman and Kinyon.
“I’m glad to see they’re moving on that, because I’m tired of telling people I don’t know anything,” Forsey said Thursday.
As reporters dug into “Project Pilgrim,” with The News having already obtained a confirmation of the Yahoo! selection from one source who insisted on anonymity, Assemblywoman Francine DelMonte, D-Lewiston, issued a news release Thursday afternoon that Yahoo! was “inching closer” to selecting a site in Niagara County.
About 90 minutes later, the town issued its own news release.
“It’s great news for Niagara County,” said Michael W. Tucker, mayor of the adjacent City of Lockport and vice chairman of the county IDA. “Bringing in that type of high-tech jobs is terrific.”
tprohaska@buffnews.com
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