Utah town re-enters duel over Facebook

A day after West Jordan halts negotiations, it has a change of heart

A Salt Lake City suburb vying against a New Mexico town to attract a Facebook data center said Wednesday it’s restarting negotiations with the company a day after the deal broke down over a contentious tax-break package.

The company is still interested in coming to West Jordan, and the city thinks the opportunity is too good to pass up, so they’re starting fresh, officials said.

Facebook is also considering a tax incentive offer from Los Lunas.

“The players are very much interested in keeping it alive,” said West Jordan spokeswoman Kim Wells.

On Tuesday, West Jordan officials announced they were pulling out of talks because they couldn’t compete with a generous offer from Los Lunas.

That was after state school board members decided a $240 million deal on the table was too lucrative, adding their voices to a growing chorus of questions about the tax breaks.

Utah critics argue the cost is too high for a facility that would create just 70 to 100 jobs paying an average annual salary of $53,000, on a piece of land prime for other development. Supporters said the data center would carry a hightech cachet that could draw other tech companies.

Exactly how negotiations will unfold and what incentives might be on the table now isn’t clear. Many who questioned the proposed tax-break package said they’d nevertheless welcome Facebook to the state under different terms.

Utah is already home to other data centers.

The Los Lunas Village Council already has approved up to $30 billion in industrial revenue bonds for the project.

Los Lunas has offered an incentive of 100 percent property tax abatement over 30 years in exchange for a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes plan that begins with $50,000 a year with the construction of the first building up to $100,000 per year with the construction of the sixth building.