Data center operator Quality Technology Services (QTS) will receive a US$11.4m property tax break on a data center in Chicago, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

In July DatacenterDynamics reported that QTS had bought the old Chicago Sun-Times site on the Southwest Side of the city and was to invest over $200m into developing and expanding it to house multiple companies’ computers.

QTS Realty Trust paid $18m for the newspaper publisher’s printing plant and its surrounding 30 acres.

On August 28, Chicago City Council’s committee on economic, capital and technology development approved a Class 6B property tax break for the data center operator.

This could create the right environment for a $500m investment by QTS into the site, according to newspaper reports, which predict that the full council is expected to approve the measure.

The plant - closed since 2011 - was almost sold to another data center operator for $20m but the deal - which would have created two facilities - fell through.

The scale of the construction is expected to create 300 construction jobs as the 317,000 sq ft print works building is expanded into a 400,000 sq ft data center with an addition of sensitive temperature controllers and high security.

QTS’s chief investment officer Jeff Berson said without the tax break - worth $11.4m over twelve years in today's dollars and $7.4m after inflation - QTS would not have been able to bring the business to Chicago.

“Before major banks and Internet companies will trust us to house their servers and all of their data, we have to provide significant infrastructure, capacity, availability, redundancy and reliability,” Berson said.

“There are a lot of technical aspects that go into putting this building together.”

While building from scratch is a lot easier and more efficient than trying to retrofit, the tax break that comes with the conversion of an existing property was a critical aspect of being able to put the additional cost into that retrofit, he said.

“Without it, we’d have a lot of other options that would be less costly,” Berson said.

The new facility, once built, will also create 80 full-time data center positions and 30 contract employees.