Construction of a new Yahoo! data center in Lockport, N.Y., officially began today with a groundbreaking ceremony, local radio station WBFO reported. The project - dubbed "Project Pilgrim" - proved to be an excellent public-relations device for state officials who publically boasted their expectations that it would create up to 125 full-time jobs in the state.

Yahoo! will build the 190,000-square-foot data center on a 30-acre site in two phases, according to Lockport planning board documents. Scott Noteboom, the company's data center operations director, was quoted in planning board meeting notes as saying that Yahoo! needed a new data center because its number of users (more than 500 million) was growing.

Yahoo! chose Lockport because of affordable electricity, its climate and the availability of skilled workforce to draw from, Noteboom said to the board in June. The company is working with NYSEG - the local utility - to build an on-site electrical substation to power the future facility.

According to a New York State statement, the facility will receive 10 MW of hydroelectric power and Yahoo! plans to get the first phase up and running by January 2011.