QUINCY - The Santa Clara, Calif.-based Vantage Data Centers selected Quincy as its first data center in Washington state because of Grant County's affordable hydropower.

"Energy efficiency has a very big payoff for the companies and the communities," said Greg Ness, the company's vice president of marketing, on Thursday.

Already space is entirely leased out for the first building, he said.

One of Vantage's clients is a Fortune 50 manufacturing and technology company whom Ness declined to identify due to a contract agreement.

The Quincy groundbreaking is set for October for the project's first phase on Road 2 N.W., Ness said. It is expected to open in August.

Vantage's tenants in its Enterprise Technology Center have space to house up to 100 employees, according to a prepared statement from Vantage.

The company customizes buildings for clients by working through an extensive collaboration and customizing process, Ness said.

Vantage's work helps reduce risk for its clients, as it is used to working with many public entities on projects' regulatory aspects.

"California is one of the strictest environments to build in," he said. "Washington may be similar to that. We're very used to all of the requirements and exceeding them."

The first wave of work comes with construction jobs, with the next layer being the delivery of specialty gear. Then work begins from building management control, system administrators and information technology (IT) architects.

The project has three phases. They include the building of the 105,000 square-foot Enterprise Technology Center and an extra 235,000 square-feet of data center space.

"Vantage Quincy will take what we accomplished in Santa Clara to a new level of scale, customization and innovation," stated Jim Trout, Vantage Data Centers' CEO.

"Our Quincy facilities will surpass all expectations of today's wholesale data centers and will be designed and developed with unprecedented collaboration between provider and end-user. In combination with Santa Clara, our customers will now be provided with global portfolio options for connectivity, network resources and immensely scalable, clean and green power."

Quincy Mayor Jim Hemberry said he is happy to see another data center coming to town, because of the additional sales tax and property tax revenues.

Extra sales tax revenues helps Quincy improve its streets and parks. The town is also building a new library.

Property tax revenues can be used to fund ongoing projects or add extra employees. Quincy hired a recreation director to start a recreation program, a full-time engineer and a police captain.

"It's very beneficial from a monetary standpoint," he commented.

Housing is another area experiencing improvements in Quincy. When Microsoft, Intuit and Yahoo! built their data centers, there was an increase in housing starts.

Other computing companies have seen the advantages of Quincy's affordable land and power, including Intuit, Sabey, Microsoft, Yahoo! and Dell.

Vantage's property is next to the Port of Quincy's Industrial Park 4, Pat Boss, of the Port of Quincy, said.

The dark fiber lines and electrical substations brought in by the port and Grant County PUD created opportunities for private land owners to market their properties to data centers, he said.

For more information, visit www.vantagedatacenters.com.