Utah offers incentives for Oracle data center

The state has offered a $15 million-plus incentive to get business software giant Oracle Corp. to expand its presence in Utah.

The Governor's Office of Economic Development Board on Friday approved the incentive, which could result in a $260 million data-storage center in West Jordan that would have 100 full-time employees. The average pay would be more than twice the Salt Lake County median, which is $32,828 annually.

A Deseret News telephone message to Oracle was not returned Friday.

Board members said Idaho is a competitor to land the data center and that while Utah's incentive is smaller, it is competitive. Board documents say Oracle "has found that Utah is its top choice for their new data center."

Oracle is considering West Jordan, but other sites in the United States "are still very much in play," Jason Perry, the board's executive director, told the board. "We believe that we have done our homework enough on this project to be competitive on this."

Jerry Oldroyd, chairman of the board's incentives committee, said Oracle "felt that the incentives and what's been offered is fairly attractive."

Perry said the board's experience so far with state incentives is that Utah is not the highest bidder, which is by design.

"We put in a very detailed model on the financials for the company, and we bid the right number for the state," he said. "There are a lot of other factors that make the state of Utah very compelling."

The Utah incentive is contingent on West Jordan providing a local incentive.

If Utah is the site of the new data center, the company would pay $73.6 million in new state wages over 10 years and $50.4 million in new state revenue over 12 years, according to board documents.

"It's a significant investment for them, and it's a significant opportunity for Utah," Oldroyd said.

Oracle, based in Redwood Shores, Calif., has about 75,000 employees worldwide. It has operations in Utah, including at Jordan Commons in Sandy.

"This is the exact kind of company we've been trying to recruit for the state of Utah," Perry said. "This company has products in every sector we're trying to recruit. These are high-paying jobs in an industry that's going to be staying in the state of Utah and expanding in the state of Utah. We're quite thrilled that they're looking to expand their presence here."

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E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com

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