Involta Invests $20 Million In Ohio, To Create 50 Jobs In Akron
Ohio Governor Ted Strickland today joined Involta CEO Bruce Lehrman, City of Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic, U.S. Congresswoman Betty Sutton, and Summit County Executive Russ Pry to kick-off the construction of Involta’s $20 million data center that is creating 50 new jobs in Akron.
The Strickland Administration partnered with Involta to help bring the Iowa-based company to Akron.
“Almost ten years ago, the lumber yard here closed and opportunity left this place. But today it’s coming back,” Strickland said. “Involta’s decision to build their state of the art data center here means dozens of new, good paying technology jobs for the southside of Akron. The kind of jobs that pay a mortgage, support a family, that give people the chance to build a foundation for their lives.”
In March 2010, the State of Ohio awarded a 45 percent job creation tax credit valued at $309,029 and a $1.5 million 166 Direct Loan for a term of 15 years.
The loan supports the construction of the data center in the Akron area and the purchase of machinery and equipment.
The data center will create 50 new high technology jobs with an average annual salary of $68,000.
“There is no doubt Ohio has a great, skilled workforce, a strong technology infrastructure and the lowest business taxes in the Midwest. That’s all part of the Ohio advantage,” Strickland added. “We congratulate the leaders of Involta for recognizing that advantage and deciding to bring this wonderful facility here.”
The construction kick-off for Involta’s data center project follows on the heels of last month’s announcement by AT&T of a $120 million data center in Akron that will handle wireless telecommunications traffic which will serve customers across multiple markets, states and regions.
Involta’s high-security colocation data center will house mission-critical computer systems and related components for businesses, government and educational institutions. The $20 million facility will be a stable, predictable, high-performance data center complete with environmental systems and controls, redundant back-up power, specialized fire suppression, and reinforced concrete building construction.
The 46,000 square foot facility will feature 20,000 square feet of conditioned data center space for housing the computer systems. Design of the facility is underway and the Involta management team anticipates that the facility will be fully operational by fourth quarter of 2011.
The Involta Data Center will provide many advantages for both local and national businesses including “the ability to share the high costs of housing and managing mission critical data and the option of off-site data storage for disaster preparedness planning,” said Bruce Lehrman, CEO, Involta. “It is often not cost effective for businesses to independently build and support the redundant systems and security features this data center will offer,” said Lehrman. “By colocating in a common data center, businesses can take advantage of a highly secure and protected environment while actually cutting costs. Use of this data center will allow business leaders to focus on their core businesses rather than complex infrastructure and facilities issues.”
“With this new data center, Involta is investing in the future of Northeast Ohio, creating good-paying jobs for high-tech workers right here in Akron–and it will spur other companies to make an investment in Northeast Ohio as well,” said Rep. Sutton.
“We’re delighted to be attracting more, new, high-paying jobs to Akron,” said Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic. “We have always been a high-tech city, and this investment by Involta shows that private, technology oriented companies are confident investing their resources here.”
“This area is ripe for development,” said Summit County Executive Russ Pry. “The Involta facility is exactly the sort of business we were hoping to place on the site. Construction of this data center means more technology infrastructure for the area and represents a win for Summit County and the City of Akron, a win for local business and a win for consumers of technology services in our community.”
Topics: 2010, Akron, business, colocation, data center, economic recovery, employment, Governance, government, Governor Ted Strickland, hosting, ICT, infrastructure, internet, investment, Involta, IT, jobs, managed hosting, managed services, mission critical IT infrastructure, monitor, news, Ohio, online, performance, skills, technology, technology services, telecommunications, training, U.S., United States, web hosting, workforce
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