It's official. Yahoo! Inc. is coming to Western New York. Lockport beat out other sites around the national to become the new home of a data center for the internet search engine company. That means 75 new high tech jobs will be coming to the center to start, and Yahoo! plans to double that number when they start phase two in a couple of years.
Politicians and other local leaders gathered in a downtown Buffalo office building Tuesday morning to celebrate the announcement. "I know one thing about Yahoo!: yah-HOOO-ooh," sings Richard Kessel, President and CEO of the New York Power Authority, imitating the famous Yahoo! trademark yodel.
Local and state leaders were giddy over beating out other locations and landing a the data center for Lockport. "We believe that this is a new day for New York state, for Western New York," says Lockport Town Supervisor Marc Smith.
Unlike other potential projects this area has either lost out on or that are stalled indefinitely, the Yahoo! deal came together quickly after negotiations began just last month.
"Lockport and the greater Buffalo area have all the resources to run a world class data center operation," says David Dibble, Yahoo! Executive Vice President, Service Engineering & Operations.
Yahoo! officials say low-cost power, an educated workforce, and even the region's weather helped lure this facility to Lockport. "It's expensive to keep cooling it down with all that electricity flying through so the fact that our temperature is lower than say Florida's, Texas', or Arizona's actually helped us," says Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York.
Yahoo! will build a 191,000 square-foot facility in the Town of Lockport Industrial Park, just west of the Delphi Thermal plant, and hire 75 employees in phase one.
"These aren't $10 an hour jobs or $15 an hour jobs," says U.S. Rep. Chris Lee, R-Clarence, "These are people who come out and actually take care of their families." The positions will be mostly engineering and high tech jobs that are expected to pay salaries between $65,000 and $75,000.
State and local leaders are hopeful other big companies will take notice. "When one of the major companies of the world, a high tech leader like Yahoo!, comes to Western New York it's a lighthouse saying to all other companies -- take a look at us," says Sen. Schumer.
Yahoo! says they'll break ground in August and they expect to have the data center up and running by next May.
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