01 April 2020

City of Mesa's "Home-Run" Deal on Google Data Center ? (What They Didn't Tell Us)

Hold on! Report from Bloomberg News today: 
How much water do Google Data Centers use? 
Billions of gallons
NOTE: According to that report, "In Mesa, the company is working with authorities on a water credits program, but said it’s too early to share more details.  .  ."

Google Data Centers’ Secret Cost: Billions of Gallons of Water
By 
Nikitha Sattiraju 

To meet surging demand for online information, internet giant taps public water supplies that are already straining from overuse.
In August 2019, the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association built a 16-foot pyramid of jugs in its main entrance in Phoenix. The goal was to show residents of this desert region how much water they each use a day—120 gallons—and to encourage conservation. 
“We must continue to do our part every day,” executive director Warren Tenney wrote in a blog post. “Some of us are still high-end water users who could look for more ways to use water a bit more wisely.”
A few weeks earlier in nearby Mesa, Google began building a giant data center among the cacti and tumbleweeds. The town is a founding member of the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association, but water conservation took a back seat in the deal it struck with the largest U.S. internet company. 
> Google is guaranteed 1 million gallons a day to cool the data center, and up to 4 million gallons a day if it hits project milestones. If that was a pyramid of water jugs, it would tower thousands of feet into Arizona’s cloudless sky.
> The company has boasted for years that these huge computer-filled warehouses are energy efficient and environmentally friendly. But there’s a cost that the company tries to keep secret. These facilities use billions of gallons of water, sometimes in dry areas that are struggling to conserve this limited public resource.
The Arizona town of Mesa, where Google’s 750,000 square-foot data center has been under construction for months, gets half its water from the drought-prone Colorado River. A contingency plan was signed into law last year requiring states dependent on the river to take voluntary conservation measures. Still, Mesa officials say they remain confident about future supply while continuing to remind residents to limit their water consumption. 
“We do not have any immediate concerns,” said Kathy Macdonald, a water resources planning adviser with the city. 
In 2019, Mesa used 28 billion gallons of water, according to Macdonald. City officials expect that to reach 60 billion gallons a year by 2040, a demand Mesa is capable of meeting, she said.
Big companies like Google wouldn’t locate to the city if it couldn’t meet their water demands, Macdonald said. Mesa passed an ordinance in 2019 to ensure sustainable water use by large operations and fine them if they exceed their allowance.
. . .Google considers its water use a proprietary trade secret and bars even public officials from disclosing the company’s consumption. But information has leaked out, sometimes through legal battles with local utilities and conservation groups. In 2019 alone, Google requested, or was granted, more than 2.3 billion gallons of water for data centers in three different states, according to public records posted online and legal filings. 
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An earlier post on this blog from July 2019

Mesa LalaPaLooza: All The Hype That's Fit-to-Print > Data Hub

Let's take one more dive into all the hoopla-hype pitched-out from the constant Jive-Talk by Mesa Mayor John Giles and city officials 
It is time for a TIME OUT.
Here's the most recent low-key report on all of Google's Data Centers with no over-the-top exaggeration, even though a press release from the City of Mesa News Room took pains to issue a carefully-worded announcement immediately after last Thursday's public meeting stating it was not a done deal. That's quite a different slant from Giles stating 
"In terms of a financial deal, this is home run. This is a great day."
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Google’s Western US Data Center Capacity Is Swelling Up
If all goes to plan, it will have gone from one campus in 2018 to four in 2020.
In recent years, the Alphabet subsidiary has been investing heavily to expand its computing infrastructure around the world. It’s been spending billions every quarter on network and data center construction to support its products for regular internet users – things like Search, Maps, YouTube, and Gmail – but even more so to scale the Google Cloud platform that provides computing services to enterprises.
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Google doesn’t expect to finish the first phase if the Mesa data center until 2025, according to a report by AZ Central.
What's omitted from the Data Center Knowledge report two days ago is this tentative and conditional statement: 
"Google is considering acquiring property in Mesa, AZ., and while we do not have a confirmed timeline for development for the site, we want to ensure that we have the option to further grow should our business demand it."

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The Las Vegas and Salt Lake builds are part of a $13 billion investment in new US offices and data centers the company announced earlier this year. 
Google suggested that customers will be able to distribute their workloads across up to four regions in the west, once Las Vegas and Salt Lake come online (it expects to launch both next year).
Each new infrastructure region is also meant to target industries that are concentrated in its corresponding population center – 

  • 1 gaming and entertainment in Las Vegas
  • 2 Hollywood in L.A.
  • 3 healthcare, IT, and financial services in Salt Lake
  • 4 _____________________________ in Mesa???
BLOGGER NOTE: The question still up-in-the-air is exactly what industries might get targeted in this "small town outside Phoenix" that's not targeted for Salt Lake City??
Reference: https://www.datacenterknowledge.com  

BRIEF                
Mesa, AZ lands $1B Google data center
Published July 3, 2019
Dive Brief:
Google will bring a new $1 billion data center to Mesa, AZ after the city council approved the move in a vote Monday, according to the Arizona Republic
The data center will be built on 187 acres of farmland in the Elliot Road Technology Corridor, which already has five existing or planned data centers. Construction is expected to begin within five years, with the first part of the data center projected to be in place by 2025. 

As part of the agreement, Google will get a $16 million break in property taxes over 25 years.
Dive Insight:
"Google’s arrival boosts Mesa's reputation as a hub for data centers, which tech giants are increasingly building outside of the traditional base of Silicon Valley. Mesa is also home to a 1.3 million-square-foot Apple data center, open since 2016, and has used the facilities to build out its Technology Corridor. The development is growing across Arizona, with Microsoft recently purchasing three plots of land there for new data facilities. 
It’s unclear how many jobs the data center will create, since most operations at those facilities are automated, though construction will create new jobs. Even with the tax break, the city’s economic development directorestimates the project will bring in nearly $157 million in revenue, according to the East Valley Tribune, including $10,000 in annual rent.
That led Mayor John Giles to declare the deal a "home run."


Recommended Reading:
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MORE TO READ > 30 June 2019

The City of Mesa's "Sales-Pitch" To Lure Google BIG DATA CENTER Here with Tax Incentives

So far, the public has known few details
Scroll down to see new OZone Red Hawk Employment Opportunity District
Southeast Mesa District 6
There are Approved Minutes available that will take you a few minutes to take a look at - just enough extracted here for your interest. . . 
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Bill Jabjiniak, the city's Director of the Office of Economic Development two days ago
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Back to March 20, 2019 when some thing was "not known at this time"
> 1 Phasing
The RHEOD is designed to accommodate the construction of buildings over time in response to technological advances and market conditions. 

Accordingly, the 187-acre property will develop in phases, the timing and size of which are not known at this time.
> 2 This request will establish zoning to guide future development of employment and industrial uses.

APPLICANT: W. Ralph Pew, Pew & Lake, PLC
MULTIPLE OWNERS:
  • MBR Land I, an Arizona General Partnership
  • MBR Land I, LLP
  • B&K Land Investment Co., et al
  • Morrison Ranch, Inc.
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Existing General Plan Designation and Zoning Classification 
Relationship to Surrounding Properties
As shown in the graphic below, the site is bound on the north by a 

250-foot wide electrical transmission line easement corridor, including multiple 69 kV, 230 kV and 500 kV SRP transmission lines.  
Beyond the easement corridor are single-family residential homes.
BLOGGER NOTE: All these data centers use huge amounts of electricity and water.  
Please note the adjacent parcels of real estate that are exclusive gated enclaves of Master-Planned Communities, like Eastmark. 

Likewise note the proximity to the Phoenix Mesa Gateway Area that may raise concerns for residents over flight patterns and noise.

The site is also bound on the east by Sossaman Road,vacant agricultural property and a house of worship, on the south by Elliott Road and agricultural property that is still in Maricopa County and on the west by the RWCD canal and vacant agricultural property.  At the far northwest corner of the site is the Gilbert Public Schools transportation operations center.
(Blogger Note: See other location markers)
READ MORE

28 June 2019

Yesterday's Mesa City Council Study Session Thu 27 June 2019


Let's get "THE BIG NEWS STORY: out of the way first, from favorite Go-to staff writer for the East Valley Tribune Jim Walsh
Google picks Mesa for giant data center
Jun 27, 2019 Updated 
"Technology giant Google is coming to Mesa, lured by a tax incentive agreement to build a massive data center in the emerging Elliot Road Technology Corridor.
In a major coup for the city, Google will join fellow tech heavyweight Apple, which already operates a large data center in the same area of southeast Mesa.
The Mesa City Council is primed to approve the Google development agreement at its meeting on Monday night. .
In terms of a financial deal, this is home run. This is a great day,’’ Mayor John Giles said, after the council discussed the deal Thursday morning during an hour-long executive session.
Giles said there are still elements of the project that need to be worked out – such as Google buying the property, 186 acres located at Elliot and Sossaman roads in southeast Mesa.
Giles said Google’s decision to build the data center in Mesa means that the Elliot Road Tech Corridor will be anchored at each end by one of the world’s largest tech companies, Apple and Google.
“There’s no city that would not be envious of that,’’ Giles said.
He said the project has been known to insiders by a code name, “Project Red Hawk,’’ for more than a year because Mesa signed a confidentiality agreementwith Google.
Vice Mayor Mark Freeman said that Google would be buying the property - 186 acres - from the Morrison family, long time East Valley farmers who have been selling off parts of their holdings for different types of developments, including the Morrison Ranch subdivision in southeast Gilbert.
Bill Jabjiniak, Mesa’s economic development director, played a major role in the negotiations. In a slideshow after the executive session, estimated the Google project will produce $156,567,507 in revenues for the city.

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