Sentinel Data Centers has announced that its 420,000-sq-ft facility in Durham, NC, has obtained formal qualification for North Carolina’s recently passed data center tax incentive under the Data Center Infrastructure Act. As a result, Sentinel’s new and existing tenants, regardless of size, will benefit from sales tax exemptions on IT and related data center equipment purchases as well as on electricity consumption.

“This is a major milestone for our NC-1 facility,” said Todd Aaron, co-president of Sentinel Data Centers. “With all-in power rates below $0.045 per kwh, the total cost of occupancy for our tenants is now irrefutably among the lowest in the country.”

Signed into law by Governor Pat McCrory on September 30, 2015, the Data Center Infrastructure Act offers property and utility sales tax exemption to data center providers and occupants that have collectively invested at least $75 million in private funds in a given facility. Previously, the North Carolina tax incentive statutes for data centers required a minimum investment of $150 to $250 million and did not enable tax benefits to accrue to occupants of multi-tenant facilities. The new legislation enables these incentives to propagate down to even the smallest of colocation users within qualifying facilities.

“The benefits provided under this new legislation exceed those available elsewhere and will undoubtedly solidify North Carolina’s standing as the optimal and most cost-effective locale for data center infrastructure,” Aaron added. “We look forward to continuing to grow our platform in the state for many years to come.”