Google Acquires Additional Property at Data Center Site

Google is expanding its 220-acre site in Lenoir with the acquisition of six parcels of land west of the main site, totaling approximately 60 acres, company officials announced today. The acquisition has been part of Google’s plan since the company decided to construct a $600 million data center in Caldwell County/Lenoir. Google’s North Carolina campus will total approximately 280 acres.

“Google’s additional purchase of land is a great sign of their commitment to Lenoir and Caldwell County,” said Lenoir Mayor David Barlow. “Since coming to town, Google and their employees have been active members of our community. We are proud that Google calls this community home and we’re glad that they are here.”

Ben Griffin, chairman of the Caldwell County Board of Commissioners, noted, “The people of Caldwell County are continuing to find Google to be a very good neighbor and an excellent addition to our community. We’re excited about the news of the purchase of additional property and are thrilled that the data center calls our community home. This new purchase will be a welcomed addition to our community’s economic base.”

Google purchased the property for $3.13 million. Though there aren't any near-term plans for the property, some tentative uses for the property could be to support the needs of the data center operations and the gradual expansion of data center capacity consistent with previously announced plans for the Google campus.

Tom Jacobik, manager of the data center in Lenoir, added, “Everyone at Google is very happy about our North Carolina operation. We’ve been working hard and really appreciate the community’s support. This is a strategic location for our company. We look forward to a long and active presence here. Lenoir and Caldwell County are great places for us.”

Greenhouse to Greenhouse: Caldwell County, Google and Greenhouse Gas Services Would Turn Landfill Methane into Energy and Education Asset

A public-private project in Caldwell County may use greenhouse gas to power a research greenhouse. The initiative, approved in concept by county commissioners, would mark the first time Google has co-developed such a project in the United States from the very inception, working through every step of the process.

Spearheaded by county officials, the proposed project would capture methane gas - one of the most potent forms of greenhouse gas emissions - at the Mount Herman landfill. Google, a champion of renewable energy, and Greenhouse Gas Services LLC (GHGS) would use the capture to generate greenhouse gas (GHG) credits. The credits would help to fund the development of a new research greenhouse at Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute (CCC&TI).

Areas of study involving the greenhouse would include new horticulture technologies, tissue culture propagation and an expansion of the horticulture curriculum. Caldwell is one of the state's top three counties in nursery agricultural production. Officials expect that the N.C. Agriculture Extension Service, which assists the nursery industry, would also benefit from the greenhouse.

The Greenhouse to Greenhouse project would follow a series of steps:

• As part of the first emission reduction co-development project in the U.S., GHGS would invest, design, build and operate the facility to capture landfill gas for more than 120,000 CO2 equivalent tons over ten years.

• GHGS would then retire the credits on behalf of Google, which plans to add these offsets to its carbon portfolio and advance the goal of company wide carbon neutrality.

• The captured methane gas would be flared -- destroying the greenhouse gas before it enters the atmosphere -- or converted as a power source for the new greenhouse.

Stay tuned for more developments. And thank you to all the great folks involved in this project!

Governor, Local Officials, Community and Google Open Lenoir/Caldwell County Data Center

Whether you're shopping for shoes, planning a trip or watching a funny video, you probably don't think much about where that website you're on actually "lives." Though they seem just to exist in some "cloud" out there in "cyberspace," all websites are actually hosted on computers, similar to the one you have at home or work. But millions of websites processing terabytes of data every day -- all of those shopping and video queries -- require much more than a single machine, and they need to be housed somewhere. While some webmasters may run their website off of a small server in their basement, more commonly websites are run off of a stack of computers (a server rack), which lives in a warehouse-type building called a data center. Almost any company that stores or processes information either owns data centers or leases space in them, including banks, insurers, airlines and of course, technology companies. To process the millions of searches, emails, documents and more that come across our servers every day, and to keep all of our services both fast and reliable for our users, we require significant computing power, and have invested heavily in servers and data centers across the world.

On May 21st, an official ribbon-cutting ceremony marked the opening of our newest data center in Lenoir, North Carolina. The Lenoir facility has set a precedent for Google community involvement: hundreds of our closest friends -- the citizens of Caldwell County -- came on site for what we called a "Googley BBQ." Along with pulled pork from the locally-acclaimed Hannah's, attractions included Google-colored snow cones, cotton candy, a local cover band, Google demo stations, a "Meet-a-Googler" tent, and a kiddie area with face painting, stickers, crafts, and (of course) a bouncy house in Google colors.

Lenoir sits in the heart of Caldwell County, which is known for its spectacular views of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, its close-knit communities, and its hard-working citizens, and is along the famous "20 miles of furniture" on N.C. highway 321. Though many furniture industry jobs in the area have been lost in recent years, now technology companies are moving to the region, and a focus on technology education is helping to usher Caldwell into the 21st century.

Several speakers at the ribbon-cutting, including the Mayor of Lenoir, David Barlow; County Commissioner Herb Greene; and the Governor of North Carolina, Mike Easley, voiced this sentiment, each hopeful that other technology companies will consider Google's presence and set up shop as well. What's not to love about an area with a beautiful landscape, a home-town feel, and such a wonderful and welcoming community? Yeah, we couldn't find anything either.

Lenoir Googlers are still floating on at least cloud seven or eight about playing host at our new site. We couldn't have done it without the local firefighters, police, Chamber of Commerce and government representatives who went out of their way to make sure everyone had fun that day -- helped, of course, by the hundreds of folks who joined us in celebrating. But what's more, we are excited that we will soon be bringing this newest data center online, as another step to ensure that our services remain lightning fast and nearly 100% reliable, no matter where on the planet you may be.

To view pictures from the days event please visit our Picasa Web album.

Cloud Camp Comes to Charlotte

The Google Apps team is setting up shop today, April 22, at a Backyard Burgers restaurant in Charlotte, N.C. to celebrate the cities recent honor as one of the top four most entrepreneurial cities in the country.

The Backyard Burgers restaurant chain is just one of many small businesses to benefit from using the free applications offered by Google.

The team is hosting a Cloud Camp to show small business owners how they too can benefit from Google applications like Gmail and Google Documents.

The event is being held at the Conlan Circle Backyard Burgers in Charlotte and will be occurring from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Food and refreshments will be provided by Backyard Burgers.

Backyard Burgers
13736 Conlan Circle
Charlotte, N.C.

Lenoir Data Center Featured in Western North Carolina Magazine

Western North Carolina magazine featured the Lenoir data center in its March/April edition. Writer Jess Clarke interviewed individuals from the community, Google and Caldwell Community College and Technical Institute to craft the article, "The Package Deal: How Lenoir landed a second career."

You can read the article here.

A New Hope With a New Industry

Over the past 26 years in Lenoir and Caldwell County, Paul Bowman has witnessed a transformation.

An economy once tied directly to the furniture industry struggled for years with one of the highest unemployment rates in North Carolina after manufacturing jobs moved elsewhere.

Paul, whose parents grew up in Lenoir, was laid off not once, but twice from manufacturing jobs in the area.

“Just a little more than a year ago it looked like the job market was all but drying up and no new industry would come to the area,” says Paul. “I was looking at a two-hour commute each way to find a job.”

Then came Google’s announcement that it would build a $600 million data center in Lenoir and Caldwell County and with it came a new belief that manufacturing was not the only industry for this can-do community. Paul had been interested in electronics since he was just a boy and Google’s presence in the community reinvigorated his old desires.

“We are witnessing the Google announcement jumpstart this community, as more and more 21st century businesses are taking a second look at us,” says Paul. “Folks are going to school to learn the skills needed so they can compete for these new high-tech jobs. Enthusiastic competition fueled by new industry, that’s something we haven’t seen in awhile.”

For Paul, wife, Tonya, four children and 11 pets, Lenoir is home and while it may have been easier to find a job elsewhere, they never considered leaving. After hearing Google’s announcement, Paul decided to return to school and enrolled in Caldwell Community College & Technical Institute’s inaugural IT Institute where he found the work challenging, but excelled to the top of his class. He has joined Google’s Lenoir Data Center team as a Data Technician Assistant.

Mother Returns to Workforce at the Lenoir Data Center

For Jennifer Crump, Google’s Lenoir, N.C. data center is the most recent in a long list of blessings and hard decisions that helped keep her family in the town they call home.

A lifelong Morganton resident, Jennifer grew up in a close knit community so typical of Western North Carolina. A community she never once considered leaving, even when times were tight.

Jennifer says she counts herself lucky as plant closings, a lack of opportunities and decrease in morale had little affect on her husband, Eric, and two young children. “Many friends and family members faced layoffs at local plants, but our faith helped guide us through tough times,” says Jennifer.

As a stay at home mom, Jennifer dedicated herself to the development of her sons, Aaron, 13, and Daniel, 9, but made the promise to herself that as soon as her youngest son entered school, she would find a job to help support her family.

“The same day I took my youngest son to school, I went to Western Piedmont Community College and enrolled in the Internet Technologies program,” says Jennifer. “The summer I graduated from the program was the same time rumors began circulating about Google coming to Lenoir. Of course, this made me very excited, especially since the skills I had learned were perfect for Google.”

Jennifer made it her personal goal to be one of the first employees to work at the Lenoir data center.

She enrolled in the Caldwell Community College & Technical Institute’s inaugural IT Institute and earned her position today as a Google Data Technician Assistant.

"Silicon Valley Meets Catawba Valley"

The City of Lenoir, Caldwell County and the Google data center were recently featured in an article in the Jan. 24 edition of The Charlotte Observer. Observer reporter Jen Aronoff covers the Catawba Valley and spent many hours speaking with the community to write the article, "Silicon Valley meets Catawba Valley: Google, Lenoir settle in with each other."

Data Center Aids Ambitious Google Cloud

Google’s data centers, including the one going up in Lenoir, are central to the company’s bold vision of ‘cloud’ programming. To learn more about what the ‘cloud’ is and how it would use the power of data centers, visit Business Week’s Dec. 13th cover story.

Businessweek, Google and The Cloud