03-12-13 | Blog Post
According to Mlive.com, Michigan ranked fourth in the country for new major corporate facilities and expansions in 2012.
Site Selection magazine’s annual Governor’s Cup reports that Michigan increased from 85 qualified new building/expansion projects in 2011 to 337 in 2012 (nearly 300 percent), preceded by Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas.
Site Selection is a corporate real estate strategy and area economic development magazine, the official publication of the Industrial Asset Management Council.
Qualified new projects must involve an investment of $1 million or more, create at least 50 new jobs or add 20,000 square feet of new floor area, according to Mlive.com.
Earlier this year, the publication reported on Online Tech’s planned investment in the Flint, Michigan area – in addition to the $1 million investment a year ago, we will be investing another $1 million in our Mid-Michigan data center once operated by General Motors Co. for their disaster recovery facility.
The top metropolitan areas in Michigan contributing to the increase in the new and expanded facilities rate include Detroit, Grand Rapids, Battle Creek, Jackson and Saginaw. According to the Associated Press, GM is currently seeking tax abatements for a 100,000 square foot data center in Oakland County worth $258 million. As one of the two in Michigan powering GM, the company had recently consolidated down from 23 data centers scattered across the world – read more in Michigan Data Centers Reshape State’s IT Landscape.
In addition to contributing to the state of Michigan’s exponential increase of its corporate facility expansion rate, Online Tech also plans to expand employment by hiring in the information technology, sales and administrative fields.
Earlier this year, we also announced our new organizational structure with our co-CEO roles, each representing different aspects of our company – Mike Klein leads the marketing, sales and relationship-building while Yan Ness will focus on technology, operations and management.
The data center industry continues to grow with an increased demand in North America – according to DataCenterKnowledge.com, cloud computing is a major driver of demand. A survey by Digital Realty reveals that 70 percent of IT decision makers had expanded their data center operations over the past two years, while 92 percent planned to expand in 2012. Forbes.com also reports that a projected 81 percent increase in the global server market from 2011-16 will be fueled by public and private cloud computing, according to IDC’s Worldwide Enterprise Server Cloud Computing 2011-2015 Forecast.
As continued adoption of the cloud for business continues, data center expansion will also continue, and for the Michigan economy and real estate, that’s welcome news.
References:
Cloud Growth Spurs Demand for Data Centers
Michigan Ranks 4th Nationwide in Major Corporate Facilities and Expansions
Online Tech Plans to Invest Another $1Million in Flint Township Data Storage Facility
How to Win, Texas Style
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