eBay considering Utah for data center

Significant investment by world's largest online marketplace would benefit Utah for years

Significant investment by world's largest online marketplace would benefit Utah for years

The Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED) Business Development Board met last Friday and approved Economic Development Tax Increment Financing (EDTIF) incentives for several industry leading companies. Among them eBay Inc., a leading internet company, was offered an EDTIF incentive of $27.277 million. EDTIF incentives are a post performance incentive based on a tax credit of a portion of new state tax revenue collected from payroll, sales and corporate income taxes previously paid.

eBay Inc. is evaluating the EDTIF incentives and will be making a decision in the near future. eBay Inc. is planning on investing over $334 million in the construction of a new data center. If eBay decides to construct the new facility in Utah, it would generate 50 new positions at an average of 150 percent of the Salt Lake county median wage of $32,828. Over a 10 year period, the new positions would receive new state wages of $23.7 million. New State tax revenue would exceed $109 million during the same period.

"The potential significant capital investment of $334 million by eBay Inc. in Utah will not only generate new tax revenues in excess of $109 million in State corporate and sales tax revenues but the benefit to Utah citizens of those taxes will be able to be felt in tangible ways on our roads, in our schools and communities across the State," said GOED Executive Director Jason Perry.

Founded in 1995, eBay Inc. connects hundreds of millions of people around the world every day, by providing the internet platforms of choice for global commerce, payments and communications. Since its inception, eBay Inc. has expanded to include some of the strongest brands in the world, including eBay, PayPal, Skype, Shopping.com, StubHub, Rent.com, Half.com and others. eBay is headquartered in San Jose, Calif.

 

Comments

What's the vision for Utah?

By Anonymous on June 25, 2008 - 02:59

Incentives are being given based on efforts that have preceded the current Governor's Economic Development leadership. It is the good work of others that we need to applaud. Utah continues to benefit from the good times of the past few years. What is the vision for the future? We never hear about that! What has been done about creating a growth vision, a plan, and ensuring Utah’s continued planned prosperity in the coming years. A data center is just another term for a call center. Haven't we advanced at all?

Get Your Facts Straight

By Anonymous on July 15, 2008 - 22:00

First of all, unless you have had your head in the sand, there is a lot of talk about Utah's future and direction of the state and its different communities. Don't be so negative. Secondly, a data center is nothing like a call center. The two are completely different. A data center is a high tech, IT operation for data storage. Highly educated individuals are employed by data centers requiring an IT background. Call centers, on the other hand, are inbound-outbound customer service operations requiring little if any experience and no additional education beyond a high school diploma/GED equivalent. There is typically a lot of turnover in a call center operation. This is not the case with data centers, where much higher wages and better benefits are offered to employees. (Just setting the facts straight for other readers.) Finally, yes, Utah is quickly advancing. For the first time, the state is being considered for many business operations expansions and relocations. For once, people are associating the state with something other than a strange religion, that's an improvement.