Winston-Salem, data center for the country?

[ncbrian]

There is a good article in today's Journal that posits that Winston would make a very good location for companies interested in data storage . Low costs and a generally mild climate with low incidence of natural disasters are the key selling points. This business is growing and Winston is making a determined effort to draw more of that business here. Wachovia has a thousand people at its West End facility and ClearingHouse is opening a new facility that will employ 80 people by end of 2007. These positions are for the most part high paying and highly skilled.

I know that a determined effort is being made to push bio-tech as an engine to downtown business develoment but I think that is too narrow of a view especially for Piedmont technology park downtown, Data centers will not bring the hundreds of jobs that many cities like to land as examples of their up and coming status but creating a center of expertise in this field will definitely put Winston on the map and further its ambition to increase its financial services sector.

[suburban george3]

One good thing about the data centers is the capital expenditures that take place to get these entities up and running, not to mention the tax revenues they generate. While they don't necessarily generate the job numbers, the quality of the jobs are usually higher than average.