Facebook broke ground on a new $188 million data center in Prineville. The 147,000-sq-ft facility is expected to create more than 200 jobs during its 12-month construction phase, led by the joint venture general contractor team of Redwood City, Calif.-based DPR Construction Inc. and Portland-based Fortis Construction.
For its first building of this type, Facebook found that Prineville offered “a suitable climate for environmental cooling, renewable power resources, available land, talented regional workforce and supportive business environment,” says Tom Furlong, the company’s director of site operations. The custom data center is needed to provide storage space for the massive amounts of photos, video and data generated by Facebook’s 350 million users worldwide.