Oracle's West Jordan plans in limbo

In October, the president of one of the world's largest software makers, Oracle Corp., traveled from company headquarters in Redwood Shores, Calif., to West Jordan to draw attention to the groundbreaking of a 179,000-square-foot, $285 million data center.

These days, construction is halted and company representatives aren't speaking about the data center, which they had called a "computer center" because the West Jordan site was to assist Oracle's entrance into the data storage and computer hardware markets.

What happened between then and now?

Oracle bought Sun Microsystems Inc. for $7.4 billion in cash, part of a $40 billion spending spree over the past four years in which Oracle also obtained technology companies PeopleSoft Inc., Siebel Systems Inc. and BEA Systems.

"After they began construction, they contacted our office, along with West Jordan (city offices), to let us know they were going to be slowing down," said Derek Miller, acting director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development. "And then we heard a couple of weeks after that they were going to put it on hold. They would let us know their intentions to begin again. They didn't say an exact time line."

An Oracle spokeswoman did not return phone and e-mail messages from the Deseret News on Wednesday. The center, at 6136 W. 10120 South, would have employed at least 100.

Atlanta-based Holder Construction Co. completed footings, foundations and sub-rough utility work on the building before pulling all crews off the site, said Tom Burdett, West Jordan community development director.

"On March 31 we did our final inspection," Burdett said. "They were pulling their construction trailers off the site."

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