Apple has reached an agreement with the town of Prineville and Crook County in return for the placement of its Oregon datacenter. The deal will give Apple a 15-year property tax exemption. In return, it will have to invest $250 million in its 160 acres of land and promise at least 35 jobs at 150 percent higher than the county average.
Government in the area will additionally get a $150,000 yearly “project fee.” Apple had already paid $5.6 million for the property itself.
The datacenter will be the second high profile one for Apple of its kind, following the building in Maiden, North Carolina. Like its existing counterpart, the Prineville location would be taking advantage both of the lower costs of a rural location as well as the option of potentially cheap, more eco-friendly power. Apple will likely draw on hydroelectric energy like similar server centers established in the area by Dell, Microsoft, and Yahoo.
Apple’s servers are increasingly necessary as it makes iCloud, Siri, and remote streaming the cornerstones of its strategy.
