Quincy Welcomes Microsoft Data Storage Farm
The 75-acre site will house tens of thousands of high-capacity computers. Construction on the data center began May 10, but company officials joined local business leaders and elected officials Tuesday to celebrate the start of the project.
"We honed the list to hundreds, and then to 20 and then to 10," Debra Chrapaty, corporate vice president of Microsoft Network operations, said of the company's search for a site. "We've bought into Quincy."
When the new data center is operational by April 2007, she said it would be one of the company's largest and most important for providing Internet-based services for "tens of millions" of customers.
The deal comes as Microsoft, Yahoo and Google Inc. are boosting the amount of data such as e-mails they'll offer to hold for people, part of efforts to compete for customer loyalty.
The port of Quincy sold the land to Microsoft last month. The Redmond-based company has not revealed the cost of the project.
"They came with the attitude, 'Let's make it work,' said Quincy Mayor Dick Zimbelman.
"Thank you for bringing diversity to our ag-based community," said Lisa Karstetter, executive director of the Quincy Valley Chamber of Commerce.
The port is close to selling a 50-acre tract to another Internet giant, Yahoo Inc., also for a data center. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company is already at work in Wenatchee transforming half of a technology building into a data center and offices.
Quincy, population 5,300, has long been an agricultural hub in Washington. East of the Columbia River, Grant County is the nation's leading producer of potatoes, and food processors and packing sheds comprise most of the city's industrial base.