SPARTANBURG — South Carolina’s second-largest single investment to date is coming to Spartanburg County.
NorthMark Strategies, through its subsidiary Valara Holdings, plans to transform a former manufacturing facility in the county into a high-performance computing center. The company is expected to invest $2.76 billion but only create 27 full-time jobs.
The center will be one of the most advanced high-performance computing centers in the world, the company said. It will leverage “cutting-edge technology to support complex computational tasks in machine learning, data analytics, and complex systems modeling.”
NorthMark Strategies looked at more than 100 locations and chose Spartanburg County. On Feb. 17, when the project was first announced but the company was still unnamed, Spartanburg County Councilman David Britt said the county was competing with another state for the project.
Jen Byrne, the president of NorthMark, said Spartanburg stood out for its “strong community, skilled workforce, dynamic economy and strategic advantages.” NorthMark Strategies is an investment firm based in the United States that combines “capital, innovation, and engineering to drive long-term value.”
“Our investment in this HPC facility solidifies our commitment to building for future growth and being prepared to meet the growing demand for (high-performance computing) capabilities among our current and future investment partners head-on,” Byrne said.
The company will be designed to generate its own power needed for operations, meaning it won’t strain the community’s power grid. As data centers have come to South Carolina in recent years, debates have raged about how to handle the heavy strain they put on the grid. This project’s ability to self-generate power nullifies that concern.
Spartanburg County Council members unanimously gave second reading approval to economic incentives for the project at a meeting on April 21. A final reading is needed before they are finalized.
The incentives would lower the company’s tax assessment ratio to 4 percent for the property for 40 years. A special source revenue credit agreement is also included that could be used to cover infrastructure costs.
The company will repurpose the former Kohler manufacturing facility for the high-performance computing center. Kohler announced the closing of its Spartanburg County facility in January 2024.
This investment is now the state’s second-largest single investment, only behind a $3.5 billion battery recycling site in Berkeley County from Redwood Materials.
Britt, county council’s vice chair and the chairman of the economic development committee, emphasized the investment’s importance and said the county will “greatly benefit from this highly unique and dynamic investment for years to come.”
“We are thrilled to welcome NorthMark Strategies to Spartanburg and look forward to the opportunities this project will bring to our community,” Britt said.
