Site not yet selected for high-speed computing center

Date: 6/29/2010

June 30, 2010.

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor

HOLYOKE -- With Gov. Deval Patrick breaking ground last week on a $110 million state of the art green data center in Springfield, attention turned to the announcement of where the high performance computing center will be located in Holyoke.

Also a green state of the art project with a price tag of $100 million, the high performance computing center will either be located at Open Square or built on a now vacant lot on Dwight St.

Patrick told Reminder Publications last week, "I can't tell you where the final site is going to be and I'm not being coy, I don't know. There's been a process for this and it's been a very arm-length process, much like this one [the data center] it's on the merits. But wherever the location is going to be it will be very, very good for Holyoke, for Western Massachusetts and for the whole of New England.

"It will be the largest, fastest, greenest computing center in New England [and] I think east of the Mississippi."

Patrick predicted the computing center would spin off "a lot of jobs" through the collaboration of state government, higher education and commercial businesses that are creating and financing the center.

He said the project is still on schedule to break ground in September.

Mayor Elaine Pluta said she believes that by mid-July the decision on the location will be announced.