Amazon Web Services to invest $1B in Marysville data services!

Mark Somerson of Columbus Business First has a local look at business news including restaurants and more!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now. Any good news, any really good news, any
good news about my hometown being Columbus, Ohio. Nothing on
the planet, mars my goodness. Mark Samson from Columbus Business First.
As always, Friday mornings means talking to you and that
usually makes me happy. How are you.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
I'm good, Chuck. How are you this morning?

Speaker 1 (00:16):
I'm doing okay as far as I know, but I
don't ask too many questions. We got We've got quite
a bit of positive momentum here in central Ohio, beginning
with the Marysville area. Although that term data center scares
the crap out of me.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Oh well, get used to it. I know the data
center region at this point. I mean it is one
after another. Amazon Web Services already promised lots and lots
of money. They've been delivering lots of funds into Central
Ohio to build their data centers. This week they announced
a billion dollar Marysville They're trying to expand their footprint

(00:53):
in the region. They're investing a billion dollars in Marysville
to keep building. They're going to have two data center
buildings totaling five hundred thousand square feet. Fifty five acre
site is currently owned by the city but will be
transferred through this deal. To make this deal, the city's
providing thirty year, one hundred percent tax exemption on the
assess value of the new facilities. Now it doesn't bring

(01:17):
a lot of jobs. They expect to hire twenty five
people in the first two to three years of operation.
These data centers really kind of run themselves. They need
somebody to make sure the electricity is on and maybe
dust them every now and then, and maybe watch the
front door to make sure people aren't coming in. But
these data centers are coming to Columbus, and they have

(01:39):
been for a while. The company in December committed an
extra ten billion dollars to expand its state of footprint.
I mean, they're all over the place. By twenty thirty,
they're forecast to surpass twenty three billion dollars in investments
in data centers in central Ohio. Now this is on
top of other data centers that are going up all
over the place too. The big question is do we

(02:02):
have the energy to power those There are those who
say we were going to be fine. There are those
who say there's too many already and this is going
to really be taxing our electrical grid. We'll have to
find out that that's just a big question right now.
And who's going to pay for all the infrastructure changes,
and who's going to pay for the new transmission lines

(02:24):
that are going to be needed. All of this is
still being debated by AP and a bunch of other companies.
We'll have to see down the road. But in the
short term, big investments in central Ohio for data centers, and.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
It's it's yeah, it's just all that collection. I just
don't understand why they put them all over the place
as opposed to one real big one, you know, and
it's not I'm not glad Mary'sville is going to benefit
I am and million dollars a year direct to the schools.
That's wonderful. What it just seems odd that they scatter
them and just instead of having one massive place somewhere

(02:55):
where they could put it all.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, well they are there. If you go into the
Virginia that's another place that's huge. They're looking all over
the country, not only for regional making sure that the
cloud and all the other stuff in AI is powered.
They like to spread these things out so they're not
too It's like you don't put all your eggs into
one basket. They spread these things out, they make sure

(03:18):
that they have the right power in each of these areas.
They're also looking for land that's pretty cheap, and in
Central Ohio and places like Marysville compared to California, of course,
or up on the northwest coast, or even in New
England or near Washington, there's a lot of money involved
in buying land, and here they can come in and

(03:41):
spend a few billion dollars, but it's also going to
be cheaper in the long run. So it's understandable while
they're looking at Central Ohio, we are becoming one of
those big hot beds for data centers, and big companies
like Intel and Anderill and others, and Honda are investing
in the area too, because they know the state's going
to work with them. They know that for now there's

(04:03):
the energy to provide for them, and the local governments
also are prepared to work with them and make the
make it easier to come in and start doing business.
So a lot of reasons why Central Ohio is this way.
But yeah, it's going to keep growing and it'll be
fun to watch to see what happens. How many more
companies to expand here and expand the campuses.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
They already have some good news bad news if you're
a fan of Red Robin here in central Ohio, although
the bad news part and its location is kind of
confusing to me.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, they are closing ten to fifteen restaurants this year,
as many as seventy in the next five years. There's
four hundred and ninety eight restaurants in the US and Canada,
four hundred and seventy which are company owned and ninety
one or franchise. They're five Red Robins in the Columbus area,
but as of Sunday that'll drop to four. The more
Crossing near Eastern Town Center will close for good on

(04:58):
March sixteenth. There are other four others in the market
of Aageminy Place in Columbus, Stringtown Road and Grove City
on Hilliard Room Road, and Hilliard at Hill Road in
North Pickerington. There aren't plans to close those at this point,
but Red Robin is doing some work to figure things out.
It also affects a local company to a certain extent

(05:20):
because there's a huge deal that was signed in twenty
nineteen that started putting Donado's inside of Red Robin restaurants,
and now Red Robins is their largest licensee and it's
selling Donato's pizza at two hundred and sixty nine of
its restaurants nationwide, So we don't know how this is
going to affect that relationship, but it really helped Denados

(05:43):
spread out without having to build their own stores hire
people there. These are all done inside these Red Robins
and it's a really good way for this local company
to expand We'll have to see down the road how
this affects them and if any of the store closings
will also meet that Donato's loses that extension in those places.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
I'll tell you, I don't know if those combined restaurants
are going to be hit or not. I know that
that happened on Bethel Road, one of my favorites, and
I think they're gone now. Johnny Boucelli's was combined with
the Hall Gis and I went there once and for
some reason, it just didn't feel.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Right way there a couple of times when they first opened.
I do remember that my kids were really young and
they liked the atmosphere in there, so I think we
went a couple of times. But yeah, you're right that
one did not work out.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
West Star Park Business Park up there, They've got something
going on in the Westernville area that looks like a positive.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah, this place has been I mean, they just are
celebrating their twenty fifth anniversary of opening this business park.
This week they announced an eighty eight acre expansion of
that for thirty million dollars. They're trying to put more
amenities in there. They're looking for our businesses to go in.
Their development sites will range from five acres to sixteen
acres and are eligible for economic incentives, so they're open

(06:59):
for business there. They already have at West are nearly
ten thousand jobs created by DHL Verdive Central Aisle primary
care physicians, for example. But they're also going to add
something that a lot of people care about. It's called
Smash Park, which is an entertainment venue with pickleball courts,
duck pin bowling, private karaoke suites because if you have

(07:21):
a voice like mine, it better be private so people
can't hear you sing. But yeah, this is really good
for Westerville. Expanding this park means more businesses moving into there,
and I'm sure that they're going to have lots of
economic incentives to bring those companies.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
In tickleball and karaoke. You can't go wrong there. I
did not even know really that we had federal buildings
in Columbus, Ohio till many years ago when I went
to Mitchell's and it was hidden by a federal building. Yeah,
but we've got some on the dose hit list. Do
we have any any confirmed closings yet.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, it's one of those where it makes the list.
We'll have to see what happens. But statewide, thirty les
are listed as canceled already. Overall, federal government expects to
save two point seven million dollars in Columbus in rent
over the next five years by determining four leases early.
There's an SBA office at sixty five East State Street

(08:16):
serves sixty Central and Southeast Ohio counties. That is a
sixty seven hundred square foot space. Ten year lease was
signed in twenty twenty, so they'll have to break out
of that. Cincinnati's office is the only other physical location.
Ohio is also on the lease. There's a lot there
also has the US Geological Survey for Ohio, Kentucky, and

(08:37):
Indiana Water Science Center. On Bush Boulevard, there's a US
Fish and Wildlife Ecological Services Office on Morse Road up
in Gehanna. And then the us FDA has a milk
safety program at South High Street forty four hundred square
feet with rents. So these are all going to be closing.
We'll have to see what happens. There's also a small

(08:58):
non public office of the SO Security Administration on Lake
Shore Drive. It's also on the list, but no savings
claim because the termination predated dose, so there were already
some in the works. But DOZE is certainly listing a
lot of federal buildings that are either leased or owned
for sale or closing on getting out of those leases

(09:19):
across the country, so it will affect Columbus at some point.
We just have to see how many places actually close up,
how much money is going to be saved. But it's yeah,
as soon as that list came out, we looked and
learned a little bit about what federal offices are already
in Columbus, and now we're going to have even fewer