Telus Corp. has paid the Kamloops-Thompson School District $7million to purchase land on the city’s South Shore in order to build a new data centre.

The deal is a win for all involved, with the 11.5-acre property on McGill Road. Dan Sulz, executive director of Venture Kamloops, said the site is an ideal location for the state-of-the-art facility and the school district has received much-needed money for capital projects.

And the centre, which will be constructed next year, will provide much needed jobs and exposure for Kamloops, he said Monday.

“It’s exposure for Kamloops in that we’ll be seen as a technology centre with major projects like this,” said Sulz.

A deal was in the works for the last year with an agreement finalized on Aug. 4. Telus spokesman Shawn Hall said the company has wanted to build a data centre for years but the economic recession and the number of communities vying for the centre delayed the decision.

But the school district’s property proved too good an opportunity to pass up. Hall said the land is geologically stable and has easy access to power, the telecom network and a strong labour force needed to build and sustain the centre.

“Certainly it will generate local employment and local construction work as well,” said Hall.

Hall doesn’t know how many people will be hired to work at the centre, but the company estimated about 200 jobs would be created when the project was first announced in 2009.

It will take a few months to conduct an environmental assessment of the land and draft plans for the high-security centre, which will host customer data, like bank, health and business records.

“We’ve got a number of these in a number of locations across Canada,” said Hall.

The school district acquired the property in 2003 for $1.3 million. School board chairman Ken Christian said the intention was to consolidate the district’s transportation and maintenance facilities but those plans fell by the wayside.

According to provincial legislation, the school district must use funds from the sale of property for capital spending and not day-to-day operations. Christian said the money will be put into the district’s much depleted capital reserve for use on school repairs and renovations.

“There’s been a number of requests for renovations that came with the amalgamations and consolidations that we did a couple of years back,” he said.

Sulz likes that money from the sale stays in the community, saying that’s another benefit for to the economy.