Shrouded In secrecy
The internet-search giant acquired its 64-acre Henderson project site in January for $19 million through an obscure entity called Jasmine Development LLC, state records now confirm, as Google’s tax incentive application lists Jasmine as an affiliate.
Last month, the Review-journal first reported on the data center project and the rumors that Google was behind it. But public records obtained by the Review-journal — including project plans, property records and business-entity registrations — did not show which company was behind Jasmine or any definitive links to Google.
When asked to identify the developer last month, Henderson city spokeswoman Kathleen Richards said she was “not able to provide any details about that project,” citing “confidentiality reasons.”
Also last month, a representative of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development said he was “not able to comment” on the project. for data storage centers because of the market’s abundance of power and “ample” fiber optic cable, among other reasons.
CBRE data show Nevada is in the middle of the road when it comes to the costs to build and operate a data center, qualified as costing between $252.9 million and $275.8 million.
Las Vegas competes for data centers with Phoenix, Denver and Salt Lake City, according to 451 Research. In Google’s tax abatement application, Google declined to list the other cities it was considering for this project.
Attorney Jonathan Stock, an outside counsel who represented Design’s request during Thursday’s meeting, said Nevada’s incentives made it a competitive contender for this project.
“The leadership of GOED and the governor in pursuing data centers here in this state have made Nevada a key choice for this project that we are excited about and we are interested in pursuing,” Stock said.
Even though the site is already under construction, the final decision on the project is officially still pending.
“Google is checking all the boxes and going through their internal process before they use the word ‘announce,’”anderson said.
Contact Bailey Schulz at bschulz@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0233. Follow @bailey_schulz on Twitter. Las Vegas Review-journal staff writers Eli Segall and Wade Tyler Millward contributed to this report.