Thor Schrock

While nothing has been officially confirmed or denied, Earth-moving equipment has been spotted building an earthen wall around a 180 acre location in Council Bluffs, IA that has attracted serious interest from Google in the past few months.

I tried to visit the site to see what was going on, but I was turned away by the 24-hour security guarding the area. The street approaching the site was even closed!

It is rumored that Google is in the process of selecting a location for a new data center that would employ roughly 150 employees with average salaries of $60,000 annually. Recently the Omaha Metro area was named the 6th best location in the United States for data center co-location.

In the past, Google has gravitated toward areas that have ample access to water, power, and data networks when it is selecting a location for a facility.

The 180-acre plot that the Council Bluffs City Council is hoping Google grabs is right off Lake Manawa, has power redundancy from two power grid networks, and benefits from an extensive fiber optic cable network that was put in place over the years to support Offutt AFB, as well as the business powerhouses like Union Pacific and ConAgra that are located in downtown Omaha.

To show just how serious Council Bluffs is, the City Council is offering Google $48 million in property tax rebates over the next 20 years. In addition, the Iowa Senate has approved a bill (that is clearly targeted toward Google) that would give tax incentives to "Web Search Portal Businesses" that invest 200 million or more in Iowa.

It is standard operating procedure for Google to keep city and state governments in the dark as to their plans, even as the land is being prepared for a structure.

My only question is IF a data center is being built in Omaha/Council Bluffs, does this mean that Schrock's websites will be indexed faster? 😉