Google makes it official

Google is coming to Lenoir.

Gov. Mike Easley this morning announced that the world's largest search engine company plans to invest as much as $600 million in the Caldwell County community to build a computer data center. It will create as many as 210 jobs over four years.

"This company will provide hundreds of good-paying, knowledge-based jobs that North Carolina's citizens want," Easley said in a statement. "It will help reinvigorate an area hard hit by the loss of furniture and textile jobs with 21st century opportunities."

The company decided to come after state and local leaders promised more than $100 million in tax breaks over 30 years to win the operation. It publicly confirmed its plans with local officials at meetings and a reception Thursday.

"I'm thrilled to have Google coming," said Timothy J. Rohr, a member of the Lenoir City Council.

But he worried about the cost.

Rohr voted against incentives that the city and county approved. Officials agreed to waive 100 percent of Google's business property taxes and 80 percent of its real-estate taxes for three decades.

"I'm philosophically opposed to economic development incentive grants," he said. "In my mind they're not an effective way in the long run to recruit business. I think they're a good way to make a splashy show to bring in a business. ... Everyone else in the community is going to have to take up the slack."