Google Data Center (NWC I-80 and 56th Interchange)

ita · Post by **ita** » Tue Jul 09, 2019 11:12 am

Agate, LLC filed for use permit and a Comprehensive Plan on 590 acres on the Northwest corner of I-80 and 56th. This project could be huge in terms of total dollars invested and jobs created. There are numbers in the article. To put his in perspective, Facebook's data center project in Papillion is a mere 290 acres. Any ideas what Agate is a front for? Amazon? A large insurance Company? A foreign internet company like Rakuten or Alibaba?

https://journalstar.com/business/local/ ... op-story-1

Louie · Post by **Louie** » Tue Jul 09, 2019 11:42 am

Looks to be a real estate firm from Mission Viejo. Definitely just an outsourced face for a larger company.

ita · Post by **ita** » Tue Jul 09, 2019 3:53 pm

Louie wrote: Tue Jul 09, 2019 11:42 am Looks to be a real estate firm from Mission Viejo. Definitely just an outsourced face for a larger company.

For sure. This thing is an incredible project based on the bare details we have so far. The Washington Post posted a story about it, referencing the Journal Star:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... 85ae85abf1

ita · Post by **ita** » Tue Jul 09, 2019 3:57 pm

The other interesting aspect about what we know so far is they have projections for the number of employees at the site out to 2040.

iamjacobm · Post by **iamjacobm** » Tue Jul 09, 2019 4:46 pm

That scale I will guess Amazon Web Services.

OmahaFan · Post by **OmahaFan** » Tue Jul 09, 2019 8:42 pm

That is a pretty Massive Data center but it won’t rival the Google data center which is in Council Bluffs that one is 900 acres. Either way a 560 Acre Data center being built in Lincoln is a great thing for its city and for the State of Nebraska. I don’t think it’s Google because they have 2 in Iowa and 1 going up in Nebraska right by the Facebook Data center “Apparently”. From the size of it though could be Facebook , Apple , Amazon , Microsoft etc or could be a NSA Data center.

ita · Post by **ita** » Tue Jul 09, 2019 10:16 pm

OmahaFan wrote: Tue Jul 09, 2019 8:42 pm That is a pretty Massive Data center but it won’t rival the Google data center which is in Council Bluffs that one is 900 acres. Either way a 560 Acre Data center being built in Lincoln is a great thing for its city and for the State of Nebraska. I don’t think it’s Google because they have 2 in Iowa and 1 going up in Nebraska right by the Facebook Data center “Apparently”. From the size of it though could be Facebook , Apple , Amazon , Microsoft etc or could be a NSA Data center.

I never considered a government entity. However would they hide behind a private entity when applying for permits and submitting plans? Seems like more of a private sector thing to do.

damonhynes · Post by **damonhynes** » Wed Jul 10, 2019 9:25 am

Supposedly one of the jernts along NE-50 is for Stratcom. My brother moves dirt for McArdle out there and they're still in the dark about it.

Doctor Fate · Post by **Doctor Fate** » Thu Jul 11, 2019 1:35 pm

I have been told that this data center is not owned by any company like Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc. but that it is owned by a developer who builds data centers and then leases out space.

Coyote · Post by **Coyote** » Sun Jul 28, 2019 4:01 pm

Who's behind the Lincoln date center?

Is it Google?

Omahacritic · Post by **Omahacritic** » Thu Aug 08, 2019 10:50 pm

If the link works ...
https://datacenterfrontier.com/what-5g- ... -industry/

pretty technical article for me , but bigger and better data centers are needed in next few years.

I hope Eastern Nebraska is paying attention to 5G .

OmahaFan · Post by **OmahaFan** » Fri Aug 09, 2019 5:02 am

Idk if it would be Google. They have 2 sites in Iowa. 1 site is pretty darn huge. Then they announced a possible Data center in Omaha and somehow they want to build another mega data center in Lincoln? Just doesn’t make sense. Btw there’s never been 4 or 3 data centers located so close to each other. If it is Google I think they should build in both cities. Spread the economic love.

ScrattyB · Post by **ScrattyB** » Mon Aug 12, 2019 4:21 pm

Omahacritic wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 10:50 pm I hope Eastern Nebraska is paying attention to 5G .

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=19870

Omahacritic · Post by **Omahacritic** » Tue Aug 13, 2019 9:30 pm

ScrattyB wrote: Mon Aug 12, 2019 4:21 pm
Omahacritic wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 10:50 pm I hope Eastern Nebraska is paying attention to 5G .
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=19870

Thanks for the link. The article was talking about 5G antennae but it demonstrates the locals have no view to the future. Hicks!

OmahaFan · Post by **OmahaFan** » Tue Aug 27, 2019 2:33 pm

Has anyone hear any more information on this?

ChadJK · Post by **ChadJK** » Fri Sep 06, 2019 10:33 am

OmahaFan wrote: Fri Aug 09, 2019 5:02 am Idk if it would be Google. They have 2 sites in Iowa. 1 site is pretty darn huge. Then they announced a possible Data center in Omaha and somehow they want to build another mega data center in Lincoln? Just doesn’t make sense. Btw there’s never been 4 or 3 data centers located so close to each other. If it is Google I think they should build in both cities. Spread the economic love.

There's not much "economic love" except perhaps from property taxes and initial construction. These places employ shockingly few people. They keep a dozen or two employees around to swap failed hardware and maintain the facility, but the thing is remotely managed from elsewhere. People always seem to think that some tech behemoth building a local data center is going to bring hundreds of high-paying IT jobs, but nope.

Steve · Post by **Steve** » Fri Sep 06, 2019 5:55 pm

You are likely right, but Debbie downer!

ita · Post by **ita** » Fri Sep 06, 2019 6:18 pm

The Facebook center, once the second building is completed, will have 200 employees. I don't know if hose are all full time or what the pay will be, but that's a good number of jobs for Papillion.

Omahacritic · Post by **Omahacritic** » Fri Sep 06, 2019 9:22 pm

ChadJK wrote: Fri Sep 06, 2019 10:33 am
OmahaFan wrote: Fri Aug 09, 2019 5:02 am Idk if it would be Google. They have 2 sites in Iowa. 1 site is pretty darn huge. Then they announced a possible Data center in Omaha and somehow they want to build another mega data center in Lincoln? Just doesn’t make sense. Btw there’s never been 4 or 3 data centers located so close to each other. If it is Google I think they should build in both cities. Spread the economic love.
There's not much "economic love" except perhaps from property taxes and initial construction. These places employ shockingly few people. They keep a dozen or two employees around to swap failed hardware and maintain the facility, but the thing is remotely managed from elsewhere. People always seem to think that some tech behemoth building a local data center is going to bring hundreds of high-paying IT jobs, but nope.

True, but they do bring construction jobs even if only for the short term. And, they buy power. Lots of it. 24 hours per day. That helps spread out usage. But tech jobs. Probably not so much.

OmahaJaysCU · Post by **OmahaJaysCU** » Mon Sep 09, 2019 8:04 pm

200 employees scattered across a 300 acre data center. Not very efficient land use IMO

ScrattyB · Post by **ScrattyB** » Tue Sep 10, 2019 10:22 am

OmahaJaysCU wrote: Mon Sep 09, 2019 8:04 pm 200 employees scattered across a 300 acre data center. Not very efficient land use IMO

ita · Post by **ita** » Tue Sep 10, 2019 10:28 am

OmahaJaysCU wrote: Mon Sep 09, 2019 8:04 pm 200 employees scattered across a 300 acre data center. Not very efficient land use IMO

Agreed with that point.

Louie · Post by **Louie** » Tue Sep 10, 2019 10:30 am

It's a datacenter, of course it's not going to be dense with people.

ScrattyB · Post by **ScrattyB** » Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:01 am

200 people seems like a lot of people to me.

Maybe 2 security guards for each shift, maybe 3 network/systems engineers for each shift, a janitor for each shift, possibly 2 hardware people for each shift? A dedicated HVAC person?
That adds up to 25 people.

What are the other 175 people doing?

Bob from Omaha · Post by **Bob from Omaha** » Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:27 am

Google Council Bluffs facility employs over 400 according to the company. I don't know what they do. What I do know is that communities have a choice to make. They can say things like "Well gee, that isn't very many jobs" or they can say "Jobs. $2.5 billion in construction and the related jobs along with <insert not very many jobs> permanent jobs. Jobs are jobs and these jobs pay more than quite a few other industries"

ScrattyB · Post by **ScrattyB** » Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:35 am

IMO, it's all about that sweet sweet property tax. As somebody who sits a few feet away from a small sized server farm, I really have no idea how they think it provides so many jobs.

At 400 employees, they must be paying people to sit around. If it's 400 full time employees (and Google), then they probably have a kitchen with cooks.

ChadJK · Post by **ChadJK** » Tue Sep 10, 2019 4:40 pm

Some of these data centers may also double as local offices for ad sales staff and whatnot. That would explain the additional staff.

OmahaJaysCU · Post by **OmahaJaysCU** » Wed Sep 11, 2019 8:32 am

ScrattyB wrote: Tue Sep 10, 2019 10:22 am
OmahaJaysCU wrote: Mon Sep 09, 2019 8:04 pm 200 employees scattered across a 300 acre data center. Not very efficient land use IMO

Why would I not be serious. I realize data centers are low employment, my point is that in an era where infrastructure is expensive to expand making buildable land in the metro more and more scarc, data centers are a giant waste of resources. The construction side is eating into the labor pool making other projects more expensive. The land use side is terribly inefficient. Think about how man you people work in a comparable sized area like the hillside industrial park at 132nd and cornhusker. Then there is the power/water aspect. These things eat tons of power that OPPD doesn't exactly do a great job of creating in an environmentally friendly fashion. They also require a ton of cooling, mostly used through cooled water. All this and I haven't even gotten into the government incentives.

Short of it is I absolutely loathe data centers and I think they are a giant waste of our time/effort as a metro. All we're doing is chasing sexy company names with little long term economic gain at a great long term cost.

Serious enough for ya guy?

OmahaJaysCU · Post by **OmahaJaysCU** » Wed Sep 11, 2019 8:33 am

ChadJK wrote: Tue Sep 10, 2019 4:40 pm Some of these data centers may also double as local offices for ad sales staff and whatnot. That would explain the additional staff.

They don't. I feel someone told you that they were mistaken.

OmahaJaysCU · Post by **OmahaJaysCU** » Wed Sep 11, 2019 8:34 am

Louie wrote: Tue Sep 10, 2019 10:30 am It's a datacenter, of course it's not going to be dense with people.

That's exactly my point dude

TreeKiid · Post by **TreeKiid** » Wed Sep 11, 2019 9:44 am

I would counter the argument that the data centers going up around Omaha (and now Lincoln) are bad for the environment. Facebook pushed OPPD into generating a 100% renewable supply for their complex. I believe that something like 150 turbine wind farm in Nebraska was green lit because of that decision. I would not be surprised to see the new Google data center along highway 50 follow suit. We also have plenty of water in Nebraska. If this was California and our water resources were already stretched I would say, yeah that probably not a good idea.
I would agree that this parcel of land seems like it could be used for something that would generate more economic and community value, being off one of Lincolns only interstate exits. That being said however, I think these projects seem like an easy way to increase tax revenue, especially at a time when we seem to be struggling to attract people here to expand the tax base. Why not have giant, mostly empty warehouses, that essentially print money into the community. A billion dollar valuation goes a long way in property taxes. And they’ll actually have to pay them... looking at you Woodmen.
Also, bumping the pay of construction workers, due to increased demand, seems like a win to me. More money overall in the local economy can only be good.

GrandpaaSmucker · Post by **GrandpaaSmucker** » Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:08 am

Whats really going on here? There must be some reason these companies are suddenly coming to our town in the middle of nowhere to build billion dollar data storage complexes. Could it be some kind of deep state hush hush secret defense department project? Probably connected to the new stuff they are doing over at the new command headquarters being built at Offutt Air Force base. The defense department is tapped into every cell phone and computer on the planet and they need these data centers to store all the info in. All these companies are sub contractors of the defense department.

ScrattyB · Post by **ScrattyB** » Wed Sep 11, 2019 11:15 am

GrandpaaSmucker wrote: Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:08 am Whats really going on here? There must be some reason these companies are suddenly coming to our town in the middle of nowhere to build billion dollar data storage complexes.

It's speed/access. There are basically 3 options for the midwest.

Omaha, KC and OKC
https://www.datacentermap.com/ixps.html

https://www.omahaix.com/

Omahacritic · Post by **Omahacritic** » Wed Sep 11, 2019 10:31 pm

The real prize ... get a gigafactory.

Original · Post by **Original** » Thu Sep 12, 2019 10:07 am

As someone who has worked in and around this space (software developer and network admin), ScrattyB is correct that it's about the interchanges. It runs a little deeper to understand why the interchanges are where they are. Obviously, this is not the sole reason, but legal and logistical right of way for the fiber backbone is heavily involved. You'll note that most of the DCs in the Omaha/CB area are near rail lines or interstate highways. See this article for a good overview of why.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/ ... ry/417414/

If I had to take a guess (I have zero inside knowledge on this, just guesses based on my profession), I might guess that part of what is going on with the DC in Lincoln is that it is not going to IX to the public internet, but instead is going to be a satellite site for a company operating a DC in Omaha or KC, with direct fiber linking those two sites. The Lincoln DC might be long-term storage, ML processing done on large datasets, or any one of a number of other operations that don't require the immediate connexion to the public internet that you get from an IX.

Here are a couple other interesting resources to compare and contrast if you are interested in digging deeper -
https://www.internetatlas.org (Overview JPG here https://news.wisc.edu/content/uploads/2 ... as-map.jpg)
https://www.openrailwaymap.org/

ScrattyB · Post by **ScrattyB** » Fri Oct 04, 2019 10:14 am

Bob from Omaha wrote: Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:27 am Google Council Bluffs facility employs over 400 according to the company. I don't know what they do. What I do know is that communities have a choice to make. They can say things like "Well gee, that isn't very many jobs" or they can say "Jobs. $2.5 billion in construction and the related jobs along with <insert not very many jobs> permanent jobs. Jobs are jobs and these jobs pay more than quite a few other industries"

Another data point...
The new Google project in Papillion will be a 275 acre, $600 million data center and will create 30 permanent jobs.
viewtopic.php?f=12&p=309084
https://www.omaha.com/money/google-papi ... 38bfc.html

OmahaFan · Post by **OmahaFan** » Fri Oct 04, 2019 10:44 am

There’s never been 4 Data Centers within the same region and so close. Then again Google could be building another Large dat center complex like they did in Iowa. The SLN Data center is Googles largest Globally. Btw there’s is way more security officers then just 2 on every shift ;)

ScrattyB · Post by **ScrattyB** » Fri Oct 04, 2019 3:00 pm

Why would they need more than 2 security officers?

OmahaFan · Post by **OmahaFan** » Tue Jan 21, 2020 6:16 am

Depending how they run things they might have a Interior patrol , exterior patrol , mobile patrol , Kiosk , Escort rovers and DCSOC. Also has anyone heard anything on the project?

ScrattyB · Post by **ScrattyB** » Tue Jan 21, 2020 1:33 pm

OmahaFan wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2020 6:16 am Depending how they run things they might have a Interior patrol , exterior patrol , mobile patrol , Kiosk , Escort rovers and DCSOC.

Uhhhhhhh, okay.