Passage of HB 117, the North Carolina Competes Act, Provides New Tax Abatements and Benefits Specifically Designed to Make North Carolina Attractive for Data Center Growth.

Kings Mountain, NC, USA — Executives at T5 Data Centers, innovators in providing state-of-the-art, customizable and highly reliable computing support environments, indicate that passage of House Bill 117, the North Carolina Competes Act, will create new growth opportunities for the company’s T5@Kings Mountain Data Center Park. The new legislation includes components specifically designed to promote growth of data centers within the state.

HB 117, the North Carolina Competes Act, includes a number of sales tax incentives, including privilege tax breaks specifically for data centers. Any equipment to be used in a data center such as servers, equipment, cooling systems, data storage, and other components is eligible for a new sales tax incentive capping the sales tax at 1 percent. The same incentive also has been extended to power such as the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity, including substations used for data center purposes. Equipment and electricity are two of the most expensive elements of data center operations, so waiving sales taxes can result in a huge savings. To qualify for the 1 percent privilege tax, data center owners and tenants must make a cumulative investment of $75 million over five years.

The North Carolina Competes Act also includes employment incentive programs and a reduction in personal income tax, making North Carolina more attractive for skilled workers.

“We have been actively working to see HB117 passed because we recognize that these tax incentives will promote technological growth in Cleveland County,” said Frank Lyles, Chief Business Officer for T5 Data Centers. “We already negotiated attractive property tax rates with Kings Mountain, and with these additional sales tax incentives on data center equipment and power, we believe Kings Mountain is the ideal location for organizations looking for a centrally located, high-performance, wholesale data center.”

T5 Data Centers already has agreements in place for 30-year rebates on real and personal property taxes with the City of Kings Mountain and with Cleveland County. The new sales tax incentives offered by HB 117 are now available in addition to the already low tax rates in the region.

The T5@Kings Mountain data center campus features turnkey, power shell and build-to-suit options within the 280-acre campus. The geographic location has a low occurrence of both natural and manmade disasters and the buildings are structurally enhanced to withstand winds up to 185 mph. The core and shell is LEED certified.

For more information about T5’s retail colocation and data center services, visit http://www.t5datacenters.com.

About T5 Data Centers
T5 Data Centers (T5) is a leading national data center owner and operator, committed to delivering customizable, scalable data centers that provide an “always on” computing environment to power mission critical business applications. T5 Data Centers provides enterprise colocation data center services to organizations across North America using proven, best-in-class technology and techniques to design and develop facilities that deliver the lowest possible total cost of operations for its clients. T5 currently has business-critical data center facilities in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas, Portland and Charlotte with new projects announced in New York, and Colorado. All of T5’s data center projects are purpose-built facilities featuring robust design, redundant and reliable power and telecommunications and have 24-hour staff to support mission-critical computing applications.

For more information, visit http://www.t5datacenters.com.

Media Contact:
Aaron Wangenheim
T5 Data Centers
(415) 292-7700
aaron@t5datacenters.com
http://www.t5datacenters.com