Ribbon-Cutting for New Computing Center in Holyoke, Massachusetts
Construction of $89 Million Facility Created Over 500 Union Jobs
December 6, 2012
A representative of Building America CDE joined Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and other government, private sector, and academic representatives at a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate completion of the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center in Holyoke, an economically distressed city located 90 miles west of Boston. Construction of the $89 million state-of-the-art computing center was financed in part through $5.6 million in New Markets Tax Credits allocated to the project by Building America, a subsidiary of the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust (HIT). Like all projects that receive Building America financing, the center was built with 100% union labor, generating approximately 535 union construction jobs for local union members.
Governor Patrick, center front, tours the computing facility after the ribbon- cutting
“This is a wonderful project that is going to have a very positive economic impact not only on the local community but on the entire state of Massachusetts,” said Tom O’Malley, a member of Building America’s board and director of the HIT’s New England Regional Office, who attended the event. “The tremendous research capability offered by this unique facility will help Massachusetts maintain its position as a national leader in innovation and scientific research while attracting much-needed public and private investment and jobs to Holyoke.”
Participating in the ribbon cutting was Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse, who told attendees that the project has already meant a lot to his city. “We’ve been able to utilize the project as a catalyst for more economic development in the art and innovation district,” Morse said.
The 90,300-square-foot LEED-certified facility houses a cluster of powerful computers that will provide state-of-the-art computational capability to support the research needs of five of the state’s most research-intensive universities – Boston University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northeastern University, and the University of Massachusetts – in partnership with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, EMC Corporation, and Cisco Systems Inc.
“There is a knowledge explosion happening in the economy today,” said Governor Patrick. “Being able to take all that data and turn it into information, and turning that into wisdom requires a tremendous amount of computing capacity. We have that now.”