Yahoo unveils La Vista center

Never did Jerry Yang think the company he started in a trailer while he was a student at Stanford University would open a 180,000-square-foot data center near Omaha.

Thursday, the process of lobbying, negotiating and construction that began in August 2008 came to a close as the founder of Yahoo joined Gov. Dave Heineman and other state and local officials at the unveiling of the company's new data center in La Vista.

The operation will house computers and networking equipment that power Yahoo's search engine, e-mail service and other products. It eventually will employ about 50 people, most of whom will be from the Omaha metropolitan area.

“This is a very exciting day — new jobs in a field we want to grow, technology,” said Heineman, clad in a red sweatshirt with “Nebraska” across the chest and Chuck Taylor sneakers in Yahoo's signature purple. “We can highlight Yahoo, we can showcase them.”

The data center is in the first phase of development and is only being utilized at about half capacity, said Scott Noteboom, who oversees data center development for the company, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif.

The center eventually will add two more phases, which will fill the warehouse with about 100,000 computers.
Bringing such an operation to the Omaha area is a move Yahoo wouldn't have made in years past, Noteboom said, but the perception that data centers must be built in major cities has vanished.

Moving to smaller metropolitan areas in the middle of the country has become increasingly attractive, he said, because data centers can service both coasts for less because of lower energy costs.

Heineman, who lobbied extensively for Yahoo to open the data center in Nebraska, said he expects the operation to open doors for future economic expansion and job creation in the state.

“Companies like Yahoo like coming to a place like Omaha,” Heineman said. “We have low energy costs and a great workforce, and they're comfortable with the quality of life. I think we're going to see our presence expand in the data center arena.”

In addition to the jobs created at the La Vista site, on Harry Watanabe Parkway near 108th Street and Giles Road, Yahoo also hired more than 100 people to staff its call center in west Omaha.

In total, Yahoo will provide about 200 jobs at the data and call centers, Heineman said. About 180 of those positions will filled with local workers, Noteboom said.

Yahoo has eight other data centers similar in size to the La Vista operation, which it will become one of the company's biggest facilities when expansions are completed, officials said.

Phase two is already planned “on paper,” Noteboom said. There's no timetable on when it will be completed.

Correction: In an earlier version of this story, the location of Yahoo's headquarters was incorrect.

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