Thank Google for that.
Omaha was on the Boyd Co.'s list of top data center sites in 2005, and now Council Bluffs is, too, because Google is establishing a $600 million, 200-employee data center along U.S. Highway 275.
The timing is just right, although Omaha faces some challenges, as well.
John A. Boyd, a consultant and son of John H. Boyd, founder of the Princeton, N.J., site selection company, said Google's Council Bluffs location has huge implications for the Omaha area's chance to attract at least one other major data center in coming months.
"I can tell you Omaha's being looked at very closely," said Boyd, who was in Omaha last week advising clients. "There's an Omaha brand that's very compelling. Smart people are aware of Omaha."
A long list of businesses with sensitive digital records -- banks, insurance companies, hospitals, drug companies and many others -- are looking for new sites to protect their data from storms, electrical blips, terror strikes or other calamities.
"This is the next big frontier of capital spending," Boyd said, because of government regulations and the importance of data protection.
Communities are trying hard to attract data centers because they employ talented, high-salaried people, Boyd said. The ever-tougher competition now includes many smaller cities, such as Rolla, Mo., home of the newly renamed Missouri University of Science and Technology.
"Just getting one of these is going to be a major accomplishment," he said.
Omaha slipped from sixth on Boyd's 2005 list to ninth this year, passed by Huntsville, Ala.; Bloomington, Ind.; and Rolla. Des Moines, ranked fifth in 2005, is off this year's list.
Council Bluffs Mayor Tom Hanafan said the city worked for years to improve what it could offer data centers, such as low-cost, reliable electrical and water service and fiber optic connections.
"They need noninterruptible electricity, and they need it at a price that's fitting," Hanafan said. The expanded MidAmerican Energy plant nearby helps ensure a steady electricity supply, he said, and the Google site already had two buildings that could be converted for data center use.
"This is what the world is about today and what it's going to be in the future," Hanafan said.
Though smaller communities can offer cheaper land and lower salaries, Boyd said, Omaha still has basic advantages such as protection from such natural disasters as earthquakes, a relatively low cost of living, skilled workers, low electricity prices and good communications and airline connections.
Nebraska's limits on court judgments is an increasingly positive factor, Boyd said, and the state's overall positive business climate and pro-business political leaders also keep the city high on corporate planners' lists.
But Omaha lost out in 2005 to Sioux Falls, S.D., for a data center of Automated Data Processing, a large payroll-processing company, Boyd said. Among the reasons: There is no state income tax in South Dakota and no law requiring that customers be notified immediately when data files are breached.
Plus, Sioux Falls, the top-ranked city on Boyd's site list for data centers, has the nation's center of excellence on "information assurance" that focuses on financial services. Universities in Omaha and other cities have similar centers of excellence, which are certified by the National Security Agency.
Google located a second data center in Pryor, Okla., in part because state law there allows industrial users of electricity to keep their volume usage secret, Boyd said. Among data-dependent companies, competitors can draw conclusions if they know a company's electricity consumption.
Omaha land costs more than similar property in smaller and midsize cities. Boyd said a prime site in Omaha might cost $290,000 an acre compared with $85,000 in Sioux Falls, for example.
Omaha's existing data centers, such as those operated by First National Bank and Qwest Communications, have pushed up salaries in the area to some extent, he said.
"To some degree, Omaha has become the victim of its own success," he said. Yet if the existing data centers expand, that's a sign that Omaha can handle more of those kinds of facilities.
And the Google project is a strong endorsement of the Omaha area, well-noted by other national and international companies that either are or soon will be choosing sites for their own data centers, he said.
Omaha and Council Bluffs, Boyd said, undoubtedly are on the "short list" of data center sites yet to come.
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