Is Facebook Building A Data Center In Fort Worth?

Rumors have surfaced about Facebook building a data center in Fort Worth, Texas. The social media giant has not released any formal statements about this business development yet. According to a recent City Council approval, a developer, Winner, LLC, got $146.7 million in real and business property tax rebates over the next 20 years.

Winner’s registration lists Fenwick & West law firm in Seattle, which has represented Facebook in the past.

Winner and Fort Worth have not disclosed who will use the 750,000-square-foot data center. Connecting the dots between tax documents and prior developments, the Dallas News is suggesting that Facebook is the likely future occupant of the facility.

Facebook already has data centers in Oregon, North Carolina, and Iowa to serve its 1.4 billion users. A new data center could be a natural progression of the social media giant’s growth.

Mayor Betsy Price did not confirm any plans about Fort Worth becoming the new home of Facebook, but she did express excitement over the association with Winner, LLC.

“There are a lot of rumors floating around out there, but as far as we know, it is Winner Llc. and we are excited about that. The data centers and data warehouses are part of the future right now, particularly for our region because we have great logistics and great space for them.”

After years of saving money to support its applications with new equipment and data centers, Facebook seems ready to build again.

In February, Facebook announced updates to its data system. The open source switch, 6-Pack, moves data more efficiently to support Facebook’s applications and user data. These ongoing improvements for the publicly traded company have made its data processing more reliable and safe for users over the past three years.

Curiously, the architectural and engineering firm identified for the data center in Fort Worth are the same as the companies that did Facebook’s new Iowa facility. Speculation is that it is, indeed, Facebook that will be using the new data center, even though there has been no confirmation of the project.

Fort Worth representatives have signed confidentiality agreements.

Perhaps Facebook will confirm its new data center in Fort Worth once the facility is closer to completion.

[Photo courtesy of VentureBeat]