What is the Greensboro/Guilford County master plan for attracting technology and advanced manufacturing jobs?

I was wondering about that as I looked at ideas for Project Haystack, the ambitious proposal to develop land now occupied by the County prison farm in eastern Guilford. The concept includes a substantial concentration of advanced manufacturing, but at this point seems focused on giving over a bunch of valuable acreage to giant data centers.

Would locating data centers on the farm be the best use of the land at a time when large, undeveloped tracts are a dwindling asset? I’m not certain that a data farm is a bad idea, but I’d like to have a better understanding of the overall strategy and the perceived role of data centers in bringing a substantial number of quality jobs to the region.

We know Guilford County is good for data centers – we’ve got abundant water, cheap power, and sit atop major fiber-optic pipelines. That’s why we have a very large American Express facility, which doesn’t get as much press as other major North Carolina data centers (e.g. Google, Apple, and Facebook) but is a whale nonetheless.

And we know that data centers can be good things for a local or regional economy in terms of tax revenue, while bringing a relative handful of good jobs and of course a massive construction project at the front end. There’s also the promise that these facilities give host communities a place in the information economy, which is true, as far as it goes – it’s just not a very exalted place in the value chain. On their own, data centers are about extracting resources from one place to support job creation and wealth generation somewhere else.

So, back to my queries: How do data centers fit into our economic development master plan? Are they an end to themselves (and if so, is that a good deal for us), or can we leverage them into something beyond (needed) tax dollars? How do they tie into our better-articulated econ dev plans, including nanotech and an aviation cluster? And is that big piece of public land in eastern Guilford best leveraged by putting up massive buildings that are largely empty of people, or is there a plausible better possibility out there?

Anyone know the answers to these questions?

Comments

[Ed Cone]

Some conversation on this post happening here.

[David Hoggard]

I agree that the first question is: "How do data centers fit into our economic development master plan?"

And one back to you, or, rather... to anyone who may know: What is our economic development master plan, and where can it be viewed?

(Welcome back... I'm jealous, sort of)

[Billy Jones]

An "economic development master plan?"

I'd love to know if such a thing exists.

[Billy Jones]

Another question I'd love to see answered is: How many existing residents will these data centers employ vs. how many will be hired from somewhere else?

Do we currently have the qualified workforce needed to do these kinds of jobs without taking them away from other nearby employers? If no then what are we really gaining? Is the added tax base really worth the environmental cost?

[Ed Cone]

The number of jobs at these data centers is small enough that I don't think local vs. imported workers really factors into the decision. That said, my guess is that much of the limited hiring can be done locally, and, also, that bringing in skilled workers is not a bad thing for the local economy, either.

The case for building them really comes down to tax revenue and economic development, the latter being the focus of my inquiry.

Other big NC data centers are built in more remote places than GSO/eastern Guilford. I'm wondering if we can leverage our assets to get more value out of these facilities, and if so, what's the plan for doing it?

[Billy Jones]

Ed: "The case for building them really comes down to tax revenue and economic development, the latter being the focus of my inquiry."

Again, if putting locals to work isn't the focus of "economic development" then does tax revenue justify the environmental losses? Couldn't the land be put to better uses like serious aquaponics such as I've previously suggested (just 1 idea, I'm open to more) for the 500 unused acres at the White Street Landfill? Our local economic development "gurus" seem to be stuck in a 19th century mindset.

A safe and reliable source for food is not something local leaders should take lightly and not the kind of thing that can be done overnight.

Ed also wrote: "Other big NC data centers are built in more remote places than GSO/eastern Guilford. I'm wondering if we can leverage our assets to get more value out of these facilities, and if so, what's the plan for doing it?"

I think we're at least partially agreeing.

[Andrew Brod]

I'm not sure what economic development is for if it's not for jobs. But I interpret Ed's comment that the case for data centers is economic development to mean that it'll create jobs down the road. Which is far from certain, but at least it's not crazy.

[Andrew Brod]

The question is whether data centers ever generate jobs down the road. I have a feeling that the history of data centers is too brief to yield a useful empirical literature, but perhaps I'll look around on the interwebs.

One thing we can pretty sure of is that companies don't care if their data centers spawn nearby tech jobs. Otherwise, they'd never put them in rural locales like Caldwell County. That doesn't prove that they DON'T spawn such jobs, but it's a useful perspective.

[Ed Cone]

Well, economic development might pay off in ways other than jobs, e.g., tax revenue. So data centers that didn't squeeze out better bets or hog scarce resources might be a good deal, even if they don't bring a lot of jobs.

But, yes, I am asking the question you are, AB -- is there a way that they can lead to other investments that bring much-needed jobs? Does a place like GSO have the opportunity to leverage these investments into other investments? If so, what's the plan? If not, um, what's the plan?

[Billy Jones]

Would it be off topic to offer to your readers the Project Haystack Economic Development Study as pried from the clutches of the staff of the City of Greensboro after much screaming and fighting to get them to release what was already public information?