An Amazon open house event was held on June 23 at the Montgomery County Middle School gymnasium, giving citizens an opportunity to be informed on the data center campus to be built in New Florence.

Eight days before, the company announced during a press conference at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds that it will invest $10 billion to build a state-of-the-art data project in the county that will create hundreds of full-time jobs, thousands of new construction jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenue.

“We opened up our project to the community so we’ll get the opportunity to speak to community members about the multi-billion dollar data center campus we announced that’s being built right here in Montgomery County,”

Amazon Community Engagement Manager Amy Jaballah said. “I am joined by specialists from across the business so we can answer all of the burning community questions that come with a project like this. I’m joined by folks from our energy team, our water team, construction operations, community engagement and everything in between. We know how important it is to take the opportunity to speak face to face with residents and be able to provide information for what’s being built in their backyard.”

There were 15 Amazon representatives at the three-hour open house, discussing topics such as environment, energy, water, construction and acoustics. Amazon also had information about awarding grants up to $10,000 to education providers, nonprofits and community groups.

“There are a number of different groups that are being set up all with different themes,” Jaballah said. “The idea is that community members can go and speak to a subject matter expert for that particular theme so they can really dive deep into that theme and ask the really detailed question.”

Amazon is building a data center to be located on a 1,000-acre parcel in the northeast quadrant of the Interstate 70 and Highway 19 interchange. Presiding Commissioner Ryan Poston said he was happy to see Amazon visit the county so residents can find out more about the project.

“I think they kind of wanted to do this before,” Poston said. “I guess (Amazon Web Services Economic Development Manager) Emily (Smith) told me they kind of shied away from it. She wanted to do a virtual meeting or whatever. Finally, she said, ‘We started having these again.’ It actually seems like it’s working better than trying to get through a virtual. I’m pretty glad they decided to do this finally and put some of these figures to rest.”

Jaballah said the open house also educates participants on what a data center is. Data centers are facilities that store computer servers, networking equipment and storage systems and require electricity and water to operate.

“Data centers power our everyday lives,” Jaballah said. “We need roads for our cars. We need electricity for the infrastructure to get power into our homes. We need data centers for online banking, access your medical records and stream TV. They actually have become really important parts of our day-to-day lives.”