STILLWATER, Okla. (OBV) – Google acquired land in Stillwater and plans to build a data center that is expected to create jobs and generate money for the city and its schools.
Google acquired the land at the intersection of Perkins and Richmond Road. The company will build a data center campus on the land.
“Google choosing Stillwater is a testament to the strength of our economy, our workforce, and our commitment to community investment,” Mayor Will Joyce said. “This project is a tremendous collaborative effort among the City, our economic development partners at the Stillwater Chamber of Commerce, and several local stakeholders. Together, we look forward to welcoming Google to the Stillwater community.”
The Stillwater data center will be Google’s second data center in Oklahoma. Its first is the Mayes County data center in Pryor.
Joyce spoke with Oklahoma Business Voice about the development, saying that Google approached him and fellow city officials in 2018 about acquiring land for a development.
Google acquired around 350-400 acres of land from the state to build the data center, Joyce said.
The Commissioners of the Land Office helped Google acquire the land in Stillwater, Gov. Kevin Stitt said in his weekly news conference on Wednesday.
The new data center will be more focused around AI, and will expand both work and educational opportunities in Stillwater, Stitt said.
“That’s going to be really good for technical degrees and high-tech jobs,” he said.
Google choosing Stillwater for the location of its new data center is a testament to Oklahoma’s business-friendly climate, Stitt said.
“I don’t want to lose that. It’s because of our energy, because we have one of the most affordable, reliable grids in the country that they’re moving to Oklahoma,” he said. “That’s why getting behind the meter done is so important, to make sure that we can continue to have excess energy generation in Oklahoma. It’s going to be a differentiator between us and these data centers and AI centers and manufacturers coming to Oklahoma or [going] to other states. We got to keep that momentum going.”
The tax incentive Google is receiving allows Google to build up to six building phases over the next several years. Google will have about 30 employees per phase, according to Joyce.
“Currently, the city has entered into an economic development agreement only for the first two. Right now, we have authorized the building of two. But the tax incentives will allow for up to six to be built,” Joyce said. “But we will have to discuss and negotiate with them for phases three, four, five and six. At the time they decide they want to build those, there will be further discussions.”
Google is receiving a tax incentive in an agreement under the Local Development Act. The City of Stillwater, Payne County Health Department, Stillwater Public Schools and Meridian Technology Center are all parties to that agreement.
“We’ve authorized a 100 percent tax abatement over 25 years in exchange for payments in lieu of taxes back to the taxing jurisdictions. Those pilots amount to 15 to 20 percent of what the full taxes would be for the estimated values. And then there’s additional payments coming back to the city through some economic development payments Google will make to the city,” Joyce said. “And then also the city will collect a franchise fee on the power that is sold to the facility. So, all told in public benefit, it recoups about 40 percent of what we would expect to see if they were paying a full tax load, which is comparable to other data center projects you see around the country. It’s actually a better deal than most.”
The new data center will bring in a lot of money for Stillwater Public Schools, according to Joyce.
“Financially, it will be a very good new development. It will provide property taxes basically through payments in lieu of taxes, but the same sort of income that would be equivalent to about 300 new homes being built in the area. Each building phase will be equivalent to about 300 new homes,” he said. “These first two phases that have been permitted to this point, that’s 600 new houses in terms of value to the school district, and that’s somewhere in the range of $1.2 million of new money to the schools every year, which will actually increase by at least by 1 percent year over year for the next five years. For [our schools], it’s a big benefit, a big chunk of money that they’re going to be pulling in.”
The data center will be located in an industrial area in the the north edge of Stillwater, north of a manufacturing facility owned by Kingspan, which was formerly Armstrong Flooring, according to Joyce.
Google has data centers in 19 regions across the United States, including the Mayes County, Okla., data center in Pryor, as well as data centers in 19 regions across Asia, Europe and South America.
Google invested $4.4 billion into the Pryor data center and created 800 full-time and external supplier jobs, including computer technicians, engineers, various food services, maintenance and security jobs, as of 2022, according to The Pryor Information Publication.
Several state and local entities contributed to the effort to attract Google to Stillwater, including Stillwater Public Schools, Meridian Technology Center, Payne County Commissioners, Payne County Health Department, OG&E, Stillwater Chamber of Commerce, Visit Stillwater, Oklahoma State University, City of Stillwater, State of Oklahoma and many community members.
