Oracle plans $1.2 billion campus in Nashville, Tennessee

Oracle has announced plans to create a $1.2 billion campus in fast-growing Nashville that will create 8,500 jobs, just months after deciding to move its headquarters to Texas.

Oracle’s plans for a Nashville campus with 1.2 million square feet of office space would surpass Amazon’s 2018 announcement that it would create 5,000 jobs through a $230 million investment in a new Nashville, Tennessee operations hub.

In a statement, Oracle said it’s meeting the demand for its cloud products by building “new digital hubs in cities with well-educated workforces and vibrant cultures that draw top-tier talent.”

The project would create 2,500 jobs in Nashville by the end of 2027, reaching the full 8,500 by the end of 2031. According to the mayor’s office, the average salary of these new jobs would be $110,000.

Oracle plans to buy land along the East Bank of Nashville’s Cumberland River and offer $175 million upfront for public infrastructure, including a pedestrian bridge over the river, environmental cleanup, a sewer pump station and a riverfront park, the mayor’s office said. The project would transform that area of Nashville, Tennessee.

“We are thrilled that Oracle is ready to make a billion-dollar bet on Nashville,” said Mayor John Cooper. “Oracle will bring a record number of high-paying jobs to Nashville and they will pay upfront all the city’s infrastructure costs.”

“I’m equally excited about the ways Oracle can transform education and career pipelines in Nashville.”

Government agencies must still approve the deal. Nashville’s Industrial Development Board and its publicly elected Metro Council will also need to finalize the deal.

Under the terms of the deal, half of Oracle’s future property taxes — which the company estimates will be roughly $18 million annually when the project is fully built — would act as a reimbursement for the company’s upfront investment. The other half would go to the city, the mayor’s office said. Oracle expects its project will also produce nearly $9 million a year in sales and use taxes.

The software giant has been joining the exodus from Silicon Valley. It already plans to move its company headquarters from Redwood City, California to Austin, Texas.

That news, announced in December 2020, comes after another Silicon Valley stalwart, Hewlett Packard, announced it too would move to a huge campus in Houston. HP already has locations in Austin and Plano, near Dallas.

In a regulatory filing, Oracle said moving its HQ to Austin “means that many of our employees can choose their office location as well as continue to work from home part-time or all of the time.” The company will, however, maintain its former Silicon Valley HQ.