PRINEVILLE, Ore. (AP) — Facebook announced it will build two more buildings at its data center outside the Central Oregon town of Prineville, growing it to the size of 66 football fields.

The California social media company said Thursday it expects the expansion to come online in 2020.

In a statement, Facebook said this new construction will bring its total Prineville footprint to more than 3.2 million square feet (297,300 sq. meters), representing an additional investment of $750 million.

Prineville, whose cool high-desert evenings cool the servers, was the site of Facebook’s first data center, which opened in 2011. The expansion will make the Prineville data center the biggest, a spokeswoman said. The company also has them in Forest City, North Carolina; Lulea, Sweden; and Altoona, Iowa.

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Fortis Construction announced Wednesday it is establishing in Singapore its , from which it will provide general contractor services for a new Facebook data center. While the company has a history of delivering projects overseas from its Portland headquarters, the Singapore venture will represent the company’s first international office.

“Fortis Construction has a strong company culture and a successful record of growth with more than ninety percent repeat business,” Fortis Managing Director David Aaroe stated in a press release. “To deliver this state-of-the-art data center in Singapore we are recruiting high-quality, local talent. We are excited about the positive impact this project will have as we deliver an exceptionally high-tech facility with the highest of safety and quality standards.”

A request to interview company leaders was not immediately answered.

The new data center will be 11 stories tall, hold approximately 170,000 square feet and cost an estimated 1.4 billion Singapore dollars, according to the for the project.

“We selected Singapore for a number of reasons, including robust infrastructure and access to fiber, a talented local workforce, and a great set of community partners …,” the company posted on Facebook on Wednesday. “Singapore has also established policies that foster a business-friendly environment, including measures that support the enforcement of contracts and increase the ease of construction permitting.”

Fortis is now seeking employees and subcontractors for its work in Singapore. Recruitment is under way for positions in accounting, preconstruction, construction, engineering, finance, information technology, safety and quality control.

Fortis has served as the general contractor for Facebook data centers in Prineville; Forest City, North Carolina (joint venture); Fort Worth, Texas (joint venture); Los Lunas, New Mexico; and Lulea, Sweden (joint venture).

“In order to complete this project, we have selected Fortis Construction to act as general contractor because of our joint experience building efficient data centers,” Facebook stated on the project’s Facebook page.

The new Singapore data center will be the first to incorporate the new StatePoint Liquid Cooling system, which minimizes water and power consumption. According to Facebook, this system can reduce water usage more than by 20 percent in a humid, tropical climate. In addition, the company says it expects the new data center to be powered entirely by renewable energy and that it is working to increase solar resources in the Singapore region to power the facility.

The “building design (is) specifically tailored to Singapore,” according to Facebook. The façade will feature a perforated lightweight material that allows airflow and provides glimpses of the state-of-the-art mechanical equipment inside.

“Two of the Fortis core values are relationships and pioneering,” Fortis President Jim Kilpatrick stated Wednesday in a press release. “With this project we look forward to continuing our relationship with Facebook and building new relationships in Singapore while constructing a truly pioneering new facility.”

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Facebook announced Tuesday it will build two new data center buildings in Central Oregon.

The social-media giant said it will begin constructing its fourth data center in Prineville this month, and begin operating it in 2020. Ground will be broken on the fifth building in 2018 so that it can begin serving online traffic in 2021.

The two new buildings will span more than 900,000 square feet, the company said. Additional administrative space connecting the two buildings will add 70,000 more square feet.

The new projects represent a capital investment of hundreds of millions of dollars, according to Facebook. The company has already invested more than $1 billion in the Prineville Data Center.

Construction crews will be busy on the project for four more years, Facebook said. More than 200 people work full-time at the data center, according to the company.

The general contractor for the project is Fortis Construction, and the architect is Sheehan Nagle Hartray Architects, based in Chicago.

Facebook opened the first phase of the Prineville Data Center in 2011. The project was designed by Sheehan Nagle Hartray and built by DPR Construction of Redwood City, California, to Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design gold standards.

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Fortis Construction, founded in 2003, in the garage of David Aaroe – now executive vice president – has grown from a certified Emerging Small Business to one of Oregon’s largest general contractors. It has a staff of around 190 and the resources to handle jobs ranging from $100,000 to more than $300 million. Projects include commercial offices, data centers, health care facilities and higher education buildings.

Facebook, Prineville mission-critical campus

Fortis has worked with Facebook in Prineville since 2009. In that time the contractor has built more than 1.28 million square feet of “mission-critical” facilities and is still at work at the site today, according to marketing manager Shane Kucera. When the first phase began in early 2011, the facility was one of the most energy-efficient in the world, featuring a cooling system created for the unique climate characteristics of Central Oregon.

Oregon State University, Learning Innovation Center

The $56 million, 135,000-square-foot OSU was completed on schedule for fall 2015 classes. It contains 20 percent of all classroom space on campus – 2,300 classroom seats in 14 unique settings plus 640 seats of informal learning space distributed around the building. It serves every department in the university, and is home to the Honors College.

Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center, Medical Office Building 4

Fortis recently completed the $22.5 million, 75,000-square-foot and outpatient services center at the Legacy Mount Hood Medical Center. The three-story facility features an endoscopy center, outpatient surgery suites and outpatient lab services. The third level was originally shell space, which is now being built out by Fortis. Legacy Health has described the facility as “a modern healing environment that promotes well-being.”

Oregon Zoo, education center

Fortis is constructing two new buildings that will compose the 20,000-square-foot education center, a major piece of the zoo’s 20-year master plan. It will serve the 200,000 children who take part in zoo camps and classes each year, and feature an insect zoo, an outdoor plaza and café and a 150-seat auditorium/event space.

Ex-Oregonian Building renovation

The building at 1320 S.W. Broadway in Portland was designed by renowned architect Pietro Belluschi and constructed in 1948 for The Oregonian newspaper. Fortis Construction is completing a $15 million upgrade to deliver desirable work space for firms handling tech, creative and professional services. The overhaul has so far opened up towering, 28-foot ceilings, 20-foot glass walls and architectural accents long buried beneath drop ceilings and acoustic ceiling tiles. When work finishes, the building will offer 165,000 square feet of open offices and hospitality spaces over five floors, including retail on the ground floor.

Builder’s Choice is a new 91��Ƶ feature offering a look at the projects being tackled by local architecture, engineering and construction firms. To have your firm’s projects considered, contact 91��Ƶ construction reporter Garrett Andrews at 503-802-7226 or garrett.andrews@djcOregon.com.

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A Eugene-based engineering firm has formed an informal industry group to lobby for state and federal funding of infrastructure improvement projects.

OBEC Consulting Engineers‘ marketing department recently launched the Infrastructure Fan Club and is seeking more industry professionals to join the group. Club members appreciate roads, bridges and other infrastructure, and want to see those structures improved and maintained, said Josh Grenzsund, OBEC marketing manager.

“We have the idea to make it an industry group that was not specific to a single company, but more of an industry space,” he said.

Grenzsund said the group provides an engaging way to build public awareness of the importance of funding infrastructure improvements. and accounts for the fan club feature links to news articles, photos and videos that highlight infrastructure-related issues and projects. Members can also proudly proclaim their love for infrastructure with official club badges, T-shirts and other swag.

“The audience is really everybody who uses and benefits from infrastructure,” Grenzsund said. “We take it for granted. It’s time to realize that it’s time to reinvest if we want to keep enjoying it … Nobody likes taxes, but nobody likes a bridge that comes down.”

Grenzsund said he plans to soon travel to Salem for a “Day at the Capitol” for engineers, architects and construction contractors, and distribute Infrastructure Fan Club T-shirts. He wants to raise awareness about the group and its cause.

“It’s possibly a conversation-starter,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to engage citizens and hopefully the legislators.”

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A few people might get some construction work, but otherwise, city officials in Prineville say a new 62,000-square-foot data center for Facebook will mean little for the local economy.

Facebook already has two data centers in Prineville on the grade east of town off Oregon Route 126. City Planner Joshua Smith said employees from those centers will staff the new facility. Facebook may yet bring in jobs, he said, but not with this project.

Prineville Building Official Lou Haehnlen said he has no idea how much the project is going to cost. “I got a set of plans, but no dollar amount,” he said. That will have to wait until the Facebook folks give him a cost breakdown on “Sub-Zero.”

“That’s what they’re calling it,” he said. “All these little data centers have their weird names. That’s just what they’re calling this one.”

Sub-Zero is not actually Facebook’s third building, Haehnlen said. It is actually more a supplement to the second building. “So for all intents and purposes, this is the third building, but not really,” he said. “But everyone’s calling it the third building.”

The social networking company operates a 224,000-square-foot data center in Prineville – with a twin building under construction next to it. Facebook executives filed plans for the third center this week. They may have plans for a fourth.

Smith said executives are considering a fourth building that would be more along the lines of the first two. “But that’s all up in the air,” Smith said. So is the start date for the construction of Sub-Zero.

“There is currently no time frame for when this building is going to be built,” said Facebook spokesman Lee Weinstein. Facebook’s executives just wanted to get the paperwork filed, he added.  “This building has always been on the drawing board.”

Facebook is not the only digital-age company that has taken a shine to Prineville. Amazon, Apple, Dell, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo executives also like the inexpensive electricity, moderate climate and tax breaks available in Central Oregon.

Apple executives are building a 10,000-square-foot data center on 160 acres across Oregon Route 126 from Facebook on land purchased from the City of Prineville in February. In exchange for a property tax break, executives promised city officials to provide 35 jobs.

Smith said Apple’s data center is unlikely to provide those jobs, so he expects Apple will eventually propose a larger development.

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Oregon is becoming a hotbed for data centers, and a new pathway to green building certification may lead to future energy-hogging facilities being less power hungry.

Each photo upload on Facebook and each Google search requires energy to process. With many people relying on the Internet for minute-to-minute activities, more computer-packed facilities are needed to meet the constant demand for data. Oregon has attracted the aforementioned companies, as well as Amazon, Apple and many others because of the state’s relatively low energy costs, attractive tax structure and ideal climate.

The resulting energy demand is enormous; usage of 25 large data centers equals the usage of the entire city of Portland – including residential, commercial and industrial. But in 2012, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system will for the first time include guidelines specific to data centers, which experts predict will lead to broader and greater strides toward efficiency.

“We’ve gone from a (LEED) version with no guidance for data centers to one that has quite a bit; I’m very impressed that (the U.S. Green Building Council) has taken it on in such a significant way,” said Josh Hatch, director of sustainability analytics at . The Portland-based consulting company is providing green building program management and incentives research for Facebook’s data centers in Prineville.

When the USGBC implements the new version of the rating system later this year, Hatch and others expect more data center owners to strive for LEED recognition because energy-efficiency design elements will be recognized within the system.

and will require each building to have two systems modeled to demonstrate overall effectiveness: one for the building’s energy costs from lighting, hot water and other mechanical systems; and one for the servers and other data center equipment, which account for the extraordinarily high energy usage in the facilities.

Combined, the building and IT energy use must be 10 percent below the current 90.1-2010 baseline. Because the servers use a lot more energy than the rest of the building, but also have fewer opportunities for energy reductions, basing the requirement on aggregated savings will allow more data centers to be involved in the program.

“A data center uses so much electricity and so much cooling that it’s hard to say it’s a sustainable facility if it’s measured against a regular office building,” said John Fithian, project manager for California-based , which has built more than 20 data centers in Oregon.

“Owners are recognizing the value in sustainable construction, but there were constraints in the old system that held a lot of data centers from pursuing LEED certification; it was just too cost prohibitive,” he said.

But Fithian contends that LEED 2012 overcomes many of those challenges by creating a comparison more like apples to apples. The guidelines will create a path for data centers to earn recognition for what’s doable given their massive energy loads.

“It’s just good it’s being recognized,” he said. “It will open the door for more developers and owners to look into participation in LEED.”

The rating system will not be watered down, however. The additional guidance is likely to encourage better practices, according to Mike Barbera, vice president of . PMA oversaw the design and construction of the BendBroadband Vault, a $15.7 million adaptive reuse data center project that received a LEED gold rating.

“I think people are going to focus on how to implement new technology into data centers even more so now,” Barbera said. “Now they can see that they can truly reap the reward of making it more energy efficient.”

But the guidelines are still not perfect, according to Hatch, who said “the devil is in the details” when it comes to LEED 2012.

The changes do not take into account that the vast majority of the environmental impacts that data centers make come from extreme energy use, according to Hatch; data centers will have the same number of LEED points allocated for energy efficiency as other building types. In contrast, Hatch cited a European green building rating system that assigns a higher percentage of points to energy performance for data centers relative to “normal” buildings.

Nevertheless, most people seem to agree that the pathway created for data centers will raise the bar for sustainability efforts.

“It’s not just a copy and paste upgrade to add data centers into the existing program; there is some robust technical guidance in there,” Hatch said. “But until data centers come through the new system, it’s hard to say.”

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Server farms are quickly becoming Oregon’s new cash crop, and construction contractors stand to reap the benefits.

“I think Oregon is poised to grab an outsized share of the data center market for both this nation and the world,” said John Sheputis, CEO of San Jose, Calif.-based data center development company Fortune Data Centers.

Sheputis said Oregon’s geography, seismic geology, taxing structure and infrastructure access make it prime real estate for server farm development. Companies like Amazon, Google and Facebook already have established data centers in the state in recent years.

In Hillsboro, ground was broken in November on a data center for Digital Realty Trust, and permitting is under way for a building for Adobe Systems Inc.

And Fortune last week held a small celebration to recognize 100,000 hours of accident-free labor at the site where a 240,000-square-foot data center is being built in Hillsboro. He said work is expected to wrap up in the next couple of months.

Sheputis wasn’t able to comment on Fortune’s capital cost, but he said it would be in the tens of millions of dollars, with more to come.

“Of the total capital involved you’re going to have 10 to 20 percent of that a year in maintenance,” he said.

So when Apple last week paid $5.6 million for 160 acres in Prineville to accommodate a future data center, it was a big deal for the jobs-deprived city, said Jason Carr, manager of the Prineville/Crook County Economic Development program.

At 15.3 percent, Crook County’s unemployment rate is 6.4 points higher than the state’s. A big reason for that, according to Carr, is that changing technology and environmental policies have affected the logging and agricultural industries.

“We just don’t have the same type of jobs in those industries that we used to, and unfortunately, over the last 20 to 30 years, a lot of those jobs that we lost in those industries haven’t been replaced with something else,” he said.

But data centers may at least provide a lift. Carr said he doesn’t know the exact details of Apple’s planned project – i.e., size, cost, start date – but he has a good idea of what it will mean to the local economy. He saw the impact of Facebook’s effort to construct a 330,000-square-foot data center in Prineville.

“In less than a year, there were points in time where there were upwards of 350 to 400 construction workers on-site at any one time,” Carr said. “And when your county has a total population of 20,000, and the city is 10,000, you can imagine the type of activity that creates at our local hotels, our restaurants and other facilities.”

Try $1.2 million as a result of per-diem spending by nonlocal workers alone. That’s according to a report by Portland economic consulting firm ECONorthwest, which Facebook contracted to assess the economic impact of its facility construction.

According to the report, the total capital cost for the Prineville data center was $210.4 million, which resulted in $75.7 million of capital spending across the state, including $24.4 million in Central Oregon, where personal income totaled $9.2 million.

Facebook is now building a second data center in Prineville, equal size to the first, Carr said.

“So we’re realizing the impact from construction this year again and we’ve heard rumblings that they could possibly build a third, maybe even a fourth in the future depending on business needs,” he said.

That could keep construction going in Prineville for the next five to seven years, Carr said.

Recently, the Oregon House of Representatives set the stage for future development by passing Senate Bill 1532, which gives Facebook special tax-exempt status despite the state’s tax-laden classification of the media giant as a communications company.

Sheputis believes the Legislature made a good move.

“You guys have an amazing opportunity here,” he said of the state. “I don’t think all these people are choosing Oregon by accident, but if you persist in trying to muddy the waters in what you’re offering people, it’s not going to help.”

Meanwhile, 175 miles north of Prineville, Hoffman Construction last week broke ground on a 120,000-square-foot data center for Amazon in Boardman. It will join one completed last year for the online retailer.

Gary Neal, general manager for the Port of Morrow, said the latest project could generate as many as 300 construction jobs and as much as $150 million in capital spending to the area.

Neal said the port also has an option agreement with a company called Boardman Acquisitions LLC to purchase a 100-acre plot of land for data center construction. Boardman Acquisitions, according to a recent application to Business Oregon for a tax exemption, appears to be San Antonio-based company Rackspace Hosting.

Neal said the sale would be the first phase of a three-part plan to sell the company a total of 200 acres.

Following construction, a data center doesn’t employ as many people as a manufacturing plant, but Carr said the impact is still significant. He said the operating Facebook facility has 60 full-time employees and that for every 10 jobs created by the data center, 10 more pop up in the economy. That translates to an additional $5.5 million of payroll circulating through the community annually.

Neal said that even small boosts are important for his part of the state.

“Even if it’s not 10,000, 20 to 30 or 50 jobs in our economy is just as important as 500 jobs in Portland,” Neal said.

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(Editor’s note: This piece originally ran in the May 19, 2011, issue of the Briefly Legal PDX e-newsletter)

The Cameron County District Attorneys office in Brownsville, Texas, recently announced it will cull through Facebook profiles and postings to screen potential jurors. The county installed WiFi in its courtrooms, allowing prosecutors armed with iPads to screen juror profiles. They already use smart phones to do Google searches on potential jurors.

A growing number of trial attorneys across the country are using Facebook, Google and other online sources to screen potential jurors on everything from their religious and political beliefs to what they watch on television and their pet peeves. And lawyers in Oregon, it seems, are no exception.

Josh Marquis, Clatsop County district attorney, said he has used Facebook to do background searches on potential jurors for murder trials, including the case to determine whether convicted murderer Randy Guzek should get the death penalty.

“Normally with jury selection, you frankly don’t have time to do it because usually it occurs within an hour or an hour and a half, so you don’t leave the courtroom,” Marquis says, noting Oregon courtrooms are not equipped with WiFi.

“Capital and aggravated murder cases are different, though. In the Guzek retrial, it took about three weeks to present the evidence and another three weeks just to select the jury,” he adds. “In a murder case the jury has to be unanimous, so you really can’t afford to make a mistake, particularly as a prosecutor.”

Joseph Rice, president and chief executive officer of the Jury Research Institute in Alamo, Calif., said social media is simply the latest tool in the age-old effort to learn more about jurors. Some 30 years ago, investigators compiled “jury books” filled with public records information such as whether a potential juror had had a scrape with the law or been involved in a legal dispute.

Facebook, Twitter and even blogs can provide attorneys with more valuable information than traditional juror questionnaires. Rice says. But he cautions that constraints such as time limitations and Internet access in courtrooms may limit how widely the trend spreads.

“The big ethical issue that the industry has to deal with is to what extent you can access what is truly public versus someone misrepresenting who they are so they can become a juror’s friend,” Rice says. “That clearly crosses the line and violates the privacy of jurors.”

As far as official guidance on the ethics of using social media to screen prospective jurors, the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association has no comment. The Oregon State Bar’s Legal Ethics Committee is currently writing an opinion about the issue. It will present its opinion to the OSB Board of Governors later this year.

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Data center construction is booming, and Central Oregon is gaining more and more attention as the locus of the industry’s most innovative designs.

Facebook‘s huge complex in the high desert of Crook County, where crews are now working on a second 333,400-square-foot building, employs highly efficient technologies and serves as the model for the company’s other centers in North Carolina and Sweden.

But just a few years ago, Facebook was like many other Internet-based companies – renting space for its servers. As the international demand for space on Facebook exploded, however, the company began to work with a team of experts to design and build data centers that could meet its particular needs.

“Three years ago they realized they were growing so fast and becoming so big that there were strong financial incentives to start building and owning their own data centers,” said Josh Hatch, director of sustainability analytics at . The Portland-based sustainability consulting company is providing green building program management and incentives research for Facebook’s data centers.

“They ran into the classic renters’ problem: you can’t put too many holes in the wall or change the mechanical systems,” he said. “You end up paying more to have inefficient systems.”

Facebook is known for taking risks, and that includes construction and technology, according to Hatch.

“Facebook has an innovative culture – the unofficial mantra is ‘move fast and break things,’ ” he said. “These big data centers are clearly where they spend the most money and have the largest environmental impact … there’s no reason to follow the norm when you have an opportunity to change things.”

Facebook also is departing from industry norms by sharing its breakthroughs and setbacks via the , which is intended to encourage communication among data center designers.

The completed Prineville facility, which includes a 164,000-square-foot computer equipment room and a 100,000-square-foot mechanical equipment penthouse, is able to operate without traditional air conditioners – notoriously enormous energy consumers. As a result, Facebook’s Prineville data center uses 38 percent less energy than one of its comparable leased facilities.

Central Oregon’s low-humidity climate, new server designs and an evaporative cooling system combine to let 100 percent outside air be used for cooling.

In addition, all of the rainwater is captured and reused for all irrigation and toilet-flushing needs – an annual savings of 272,000 gallons of municipally treated water. Solar panels provide approximately 204,000 kilowatt-hours per year.

But the new technology challenged the construction team, led by a joint venture between and .

“The new technology requires a little more hand-holding as we commission the facility,” said David Aaroe, executive vice president at Fortis. “There are a lot of new applications for a lot of our subs who hadn’t previously dealt with technology for cooling and electrical systems, so there’s a slight learning curve, but they catch on very rapidly.”

Approximately 70 percent of the subcontractors that worked on the first Prineville facility are returning for the second one. More than 1,000 people have worked on both buildings now, with approximately 50 percent coming from the local area, according to data from the contractors.

The completed building recently earned a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold rating, and Facebook’s similar facility in North Carolina is slated to achieve the same honor in the coming months.

In addition, construction trade magazine . It is one of the 18 category winners being considered for ENR’s top honor, which will be named by magazine editors on Feb. 13.

“In the last six years, we have constructed over $1.2 billion worth of data center projects, and (the Facebook facilities) are by far the most energy efficient that we’ve ever constructed,” Aaroe said.

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