Apple still not naming NC town as data center site

RALEIGH, N.C. - Two days after local leaders approved tax breaks they saw as the deciding factor in coaxing a $1 billion Apple Inc. data center to a hard-hit Catawba County town, the technology giant still refused to confirm Wednesday that it had locked in its choice.

The reason is that the Cupertino, Calif.-based company continues to negotiate contract and other details involving the offer by Catawba County and the town of Maiden, said Dale Carroll, deputy secretary of the state Commerce Department.

"We are still working through the process. It now is a more locally focused process, but they are still completing steps in that process," Carroll said Wednesday.

Apple made only a general statement Monday at a meeting in Maiden where local officials approved tax breaks of $20.7 million over 10 years on top of the state's earlier corporate tax break of about $46 million over a decade. The Apple statement never named the county and town where it planned to build.

"Apple is looking forward to building a new data center in North Carolina, and we appreciate the efforts of Gov. Perdue, the state lawmakers, the County and the Town, and all who helped make it possible," Apple director of state and local affairs Mike Foulkes said. He told the Charlotte Business Journal it was the company's "desire and hope" to build in Catawba County.

Apple representatives since then have declined to confirm the company's choice, referring back to the Monday statement.

The company said June 3 it would build somewhere in North Carolina, and since then has sorted through potential sites for the data center, a vast collection of servers able to process tremendous amounts of data traffic.

Catawba County and Maiden agreed to the local incentives to help trim the area's 15 percent unemployment rate. While the data center is only expected to employ about 50 full-time workers, promoters emphasize that the infusion of economic activity would mean work for local security, janitorial and repair service companies.

Maiden, a town of some 3,300 about 30 miles northwest of Charlotte, is part of the Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton metropolitan area, which the U.S. Labor Department last week reported had one of the country's sharpest increases in unemployment in the country. The area's joblessness gained 8.5 percentage points in the year ending in May to reach 15.4 percent.

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