Here in Mesa: THE DATA CENTER HUSTLE (by Jon Talton Post-Date May 31,2021)

It's about time Rogue Columnist Jon Talton warmed-up his pen and hit on this subject:

May 31, 2021

The data center hustle

 

"Data centers becoming dominant force in Mesa," reads the headline on a recent East Valley Tribune story. The lede: "It may never rival Silicon Valley, but Mesa is fast becoming Data Center Alley." 

 

This "Alley" isn't transforming struggling west Mesa and it's nowhere near the light-rail line. Instead, it's centered on the "Elliott Avenue Technology Corridor" in far southeast Mesa, the location of agriculture, desert, and the former Williams Air Force Base. Now, with abundant concrete, gravel, and asphalt, it will expand the increasingly dangerous Phoenix urban heat island. The "Corridor" is entirely car dependent.

Data centers are lowest on the ladder of the tech economy: necessary, but bringing few jobs — much less high-end jobs — and several headaches. This is why they are usually found in rural areas desperate to replace their lost millwork, manufacturing, or railroad jobs. States and localities shell out huge incentives and disappointment follows.

But to see the proliferation of data centers in a city the size of Mesa (518,000 in 2019), in the 10th most populous metropolitan area in the nation, is curious.

A Google data center for Mesa announced in 2019, lured with tax breaks, would create few permanent jobs. Even the much-hyped Apple "global command center" is merely a big data center, promising only 150 full-time positions.

By comparison, Amazon's headquarters in downtown Seattle holds more than 50,000 high-paid executive and software engineer jobs. At nearby Redmond, Microsoft has 54,000 employees at its headquarters. Every major Big Tech firm from Silicon Valley has major operations there (no data centers). This is the headwaters of high tech.

Another problem with Data Center Alley: These massive server farms are water hogs. Elsewhere, they contribute to climate change because of their enormous appetite for electricity. Maybe Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station helps Mesa here. It's only built upwind of the nation's fifth most populous city.

And no evidence has emerged that data centers are a gateway to more advanced tech work. Metro Phoenix got nowhere in its bid for Amazon HQ2. Any "exodus" from the Bay Area has benefited an established center of quality, Austin. Google is building a transformative new campus in downtown San Jose, close to light rail and commuter trains to San Francisco. The best talent digs great cities.

Read more closely and it's clear that Mesa's "technology corridor" is yet another Arizona real-estate hustle, dependent on cheap farmland and tilt-up buildings, plus a heapin' helping of tax breaks — in a state that ranks second from last in per-student funding.

"It may never rival Silicon Valley...."  It couldn't. Silicon Valley is sui generis, with no rival in the world. The former Valley of Heart's Delight became the world leader in high tech because of proximity to world-class universities and talent, the emergence of top companies, serial entrepreneurs, the greatest concentration of angel and venture capital on the planet, and a history of innovation that dates back to "the traitorous eight" who founded such pillars as Intel.

Sunshine, the real-estate Ponzi scheme, and a flat tax leaves you in a blind alley."

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RELATED CONTENT ON THIS BLOG

This Year 2019

Data firms flocking to Mesa’s tech corridor        

By Jim Walsh, Tribune Staff Writer

East Valley Tribune                                        2019-10-14T01:00:00-07:00

Image Caption:

Mesa officials planned out the technology corridor for eight years and it’s paying off handsomely for the city’s economy.

(Special to the Tribune)

 

"Mesa’s Elliot Road Technology Corridor, once an isolated swath of open desert on the city’s eastern fringe, is now booming as proposed data centers multiply and years of planning pay off.

Five companies bought land and several are pursuing construction plans.

Raging Wire won planning and zoning approvals from Mesa in the past two weeks – a green light for constructing a 1.5-million-square-foot campus with seven buildings.

“We’re the little guys,’’ said Paul Martin, senior design project manager for Raging Wire, after Mesa’s Design Review Board praised the company’s architectural plans.

Martin said Raging Wire’s business is different.
It builds data centers and attracts smaller companies and Google to rent space to eventually accommodate rows of servers to process all kinds of data.

“It’s a great project. It’s great for the city of Mesa,’’ said Randy Carter, chairman of the Design Review Board, which reviews the architectural quality and landscaping of proposed buildings.

Bill Jabjiniak, Mesa’s economic development director, said the boom is no coincidence and represents eight years of planning to lure the high-tech companies and their high-paying jobs to Mesa.

“I would tell you this is a vision that started eight years ago,’’ Jabjiniak said, saying it was back then that he and his colleagues started assembling the infrastructure vital to data centers.

Jabjiniak listed the three critical elements that laid the groundwork for what is happening today:

The relatively cheap power from the Salt River Project, because electricity is the biggest cost to data centers is a big draw . . .

Alos citing availability of redundant fiber for Internet access as a desireable criteria. Mesa invested in an “e-streets program years ago,’’ Jabjiniak said, installing empty underground conduits so companies could lay fiber optic cables when necessary.

Note: The difference from the image used by Jim Walsh
in his "Special to The Tribune

With streamlined zoning approval, it eliminats months of delays. Mesa created a tech corridor zoning overlay, allowing tech companies to “opt in’’ to the special zoning available and to have plans approved administratively. . ."

(self-certified that is for that expedited streamlined process)

 

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Public oversight is assured because the City Council must approve a development agreement with the companies before construction begins.

“I think it’s starting to blossom. It’s growing before our eyes,’’ Jabjiniak said. “I think there is more to come.’’

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2018

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HERE'S IT IS JUST 3 DAYS AGO > on the back of taxpayers 
Mesa to sink $10 million into Elliot Road expansion for tech corridor

Lily Altavena, The Republic | azcentral.com Published 5:00 a.m. MT April 19, 2018

"The City Council voted on a $10 million contract April 16 with Nesbitt Contracting Company, approving street widening, storm-water harvesting areas, new street lights, landscaping, a new traffic signal and and other aesthetic improvements.

The major infrastructure investment comes as leaders hope the once-deserted stretch of desert will turn into a hub for technology companies.

"I see it a lot like Price Road corridor (in Chandler) or like Silicon Valley, once you build it, the others will come," ???

Kevin Thompson, the Mesa councilman representing the district that includes the tech corridor, said. 

But whether the $10 million in improvements is worth the taxpayer investment remains to be seen. The area is expected to see an influx of data centers over the next few years.

 Will Elliot Road be metro Phoenix's next tech hub? 

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29 October 2019

After All These Years The Time Is (Almost) Right To Hit Pay-Dirt: City Planner Tom Ellsworth + The 4-in-One Zoning Case

< Here's one picture that's worth more than just a few thousandwords, two hours of your time watching a video-on-demand, and history going back to a bygone era in the 1880's. It's the next step in the development process after passing through the Mesa Planning & Zoning Board. It's been years in the making - Rogue Columnist Jon Tilton called it The Real Estate Industrial Complex
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What's on the Line?
Millions of dollars in acreage that was previously zoned as agricultural land - The Boyle Family 860-acre Dairy Farm - and a parcel of state-owned land all around The Hawes Interchange close to Mesa's Elliot Road Tech Corridor, where water lines were expanded from Ellsworth Road to Signal Butte and the Signal Butte Water Treatment Plant got built.
(There's more background and history from previous posts on this blog from October 2017 farther down)
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Here's City Staff Planner Tom Ellsworth making a presentation on Water Asset Management in front of a public Mesa City Council Study Session earlier this month on October 7, 2019.

There's $800,000,000 on-the-table and on the agenda for Capital Improvement Project for discussion.
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Here's City Staff Planner Tom Ellsworth appearing again last week 5 days ago

24 October 2019

Planning & Zoning Meeting - 10/23/2019

Views at time of upload to this blog = 7  Note: 4 items were asked to be removed from the Consent Agenda for individual consideration - Items 8a - 8d.

City Planner Tom Ellsworth has put them all together since they are related

Comments are asked to be withheld until conclusion of the staff presentation just to keep things on track . . and there's some people from the airport