AT&T to Build $200 Million Data Center; RATO Headquarters Planned for Lincoln County

By Eliza Theiss, Associate Editor

Telecommunications and wireless provider AT&T announced it will build a $200 million data center in Kings Mountain, N.C. The development will create up to 100 permanent jobs and an additional 1,000 temporary construction positions. The data center is scheduled to open in 2014, according to the company’s press release.

The entire economic impact of the data center is estimated at $935 million over ten years, which includes annual spending on goods, services, upkeep and operations.

The center will be built in T5 Partner’s King Mountain Data Center Park and will have a surface area of 470,000 square feet, reports the Charlotte Business Journal. Three additional computer rooms will follow, increasing the total surface area to around 900,000 square feet. The data center will occupy 130 acres, making it the largest slice of property ever sold in the park.

Dallas-based AT&T’s former North Carolina investments include a DSL Technical Support Center in Goldsboro, which opened in 2008 and created around 400 jobs.

In other news, RATO North-America, a subsidiary of China’s Chongqing RATO Power Co. Ltd., will establish its U.S. headquarters in eastern Lincoln County, according to the Charlotte Business Journal.  The manufacturing facility could open in the fall and will add around 600 jobs to the local job market, 40 of which would be executive level. The facility will be temporary as RATO searches for a permanent 450,000-square-foot industrial site for a larger research, distribution and manufacturing center that would hire up to 1,000 workers.

RATO is a general purpose engine and all-terrain vehicle manufacturer based in Chongqing, China. The company recently acquired Denver Global Products Inc. of Lincoln County for a reported $70 million in an attempt to tap the U.S.  engine, motorcycle and all-terrain vehicle market.

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