Apple needed land owned by Donnie and Kathy Fulbright for a US$1 billion data center in rural North Carolina and were willing to pay big bucks for the Maiden property.
The Fulbrights say they spurned one offer, then a second, “Bloomberg” (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-05/apple-s-data-needs-mean-1-7-million-jacuzzi-for-carolina-pair.html?cmpid=yhoo) reports. Finally, they agreed to sell for $1.7 million, county records show, opting to leave the single-story house on the less than one acre of land they purchased for $6,000, the article adds.
Last year it was announced that Apple would build a data center in Catawba County on the outskirts of Maiden. Maiden and Catawba County agreed to US$7.3 million in incentives for Apple in order for them to build the center there. The company will build a 500,000-square-foot facility along U.S. Highway 321. However, no one knows exactly what the data center will be used for.