Letter to the Editor: Data center incentive will be good for Illinois

The following is a letter to the editor from John Quinn, Choose DuPage Economic Development Alliance Chair

 

By Daily Herald | View Article

On behalf of the Public Policy Committee of the Choose DuPage Economic Development Alliance, we applaud Gov. Pritzker and the General Assembly for supporting legislation that provides for a data center tax incentive and overall support of data center growth in Illinois.

The new data center tax incentive will make Illinois more competitive with surrounding states that have similar incentives, and provides an opportunity for DuPage County to leverage the incentive as an effective economic development tool for business and job creation.

Data processing, hosting and related industry operations employ more than 1,600 workers in DuPage County, earning an average annual wage of more than $96,000. This industry is not only providing attractive opportunities to our local workforce, but the benefits these facilities offer to businesses looking for high-level data storage, recovery, resiliency and other critical data-related services are paramount for our continued regional economic development. Further, many new jobs in labor, construction, and tech-related fields will be created as new data centers are brought to our area.

As the economic development voice of DuPage County, Choose DuPage strongly believes this is an important tool for our communities and an investment in the future of DuPage that will allow our businesses to excel and our economy to continue to thrive.

Research has also shown that DuPage County, and Illinois for that matter, are strategically positioned both geographically and from an energy and telecommunications infrastructure standpoint to capture continued growth of these high-tech businesses.

This tax incentive could provide the economic fuel to move Illinois into the leadership position and further strengthen all aspects of the DuPage economy. We thank our state lawmakers for providing this incentive that will allow us to more effectively compete for data center growth opportunities.

 

John Quinn, Chair, Public Policy Committee

Choose DuPage Economic Development Alliance