BIG SPRING, TX — Howard County has entered into a 381 agreement with the “Elbow Creek data center.” This will be a reimbursement program. According to County Judge Randy Johnson, the business will have to invest a certain amount of money before the county will give them a portion of their taxes back.
“The more that they invest, the better our incentive is to them. So, there’s potential of as much of $110 million being invested in this particular data center,” said Judge Johnson.
He also advised that there is potential for this project to have levels, meaning that there would be one data center and then expand for a phase 2. The data center is a big set of computers that can be used for a variety of purposes. This data center will be bitcoin related, and may expand into cloud storage. According to Johnson, the appeal of data centers in Howard County is that they would be able to tie into the wind turbines south of Big Spring.
The benefit of this agreement for Howard County taxpayers would mean an increase in tax base. That means that the data center would bring in a more taxable money and the portion that taxpayers must pay would decrease. He did note that this project does not bring in a lot of jobs, but it will bring an investment in the county that other entities in the community will be able to tax.
Johnson told KBest News that the agreement is made possible with the help of Mark Willis and Teresa Morris with the Big Spring Economic Development Corporation.
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