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GREENSBORO — One way for Greensboro’s struggling economy to grow, say local leaders, is for the city to attract data centers — computer operations that protect and store data for banks, education, government and other big enterprises.

That dream may be closer because a national consultant has picked a site in Greensboro as one of the best places in the nation to build a data center.

An industrial park that once housed AT&T’s Guilford Center in eastern Greensboro was built with massive electric power lines and fiber-optic communication lines because the company did military projects in the 1970s.

Now, that backbone could be a big draw for any company that needs the same level of capacity and safety for a big, power-hungry data center, said Ronald Bowman Jr., a real estate consultant who featured the site in a new book for businesses that want to locate a data center.

“The fundamentals are very solid,” Bowman said, although the buildings are not up to current standards.

One company has considered the site already, but selected another location. But Bowman said he is working on another deal now and that could bring a new company to the site.

He said such a site could serve companies in the Triad and Research Triangle because companies prefer their data centers to be 40 miles away to minimize the chance of a disaster hitting both sites.

Duke Energy, which supplies the site with power, was a major factor for Bowman. He said that the company does an exceptional job of working with businesses that build such “mission critical” operations: that is, data centers that must have uninterrupted power.

Duke Energy, he said, “has some of the smartest, well-equipped people I’ve ever worked with.”

Greensboro’s economic development leaders say data centers are a perfect way for this city to grow and create jobs that have a solid future.

Bowman’s endorsement carries weight, said Dan Lynch, president of the Greensboro Economic Development Alliance, which does all the business recruitment for Greensboro.

“For him to recognize the value of that site is critically important to the recruitment process,” he said.

UNCG and N.C. A&T are developing a similar facility at the south campus of the Gateway University Research Park. The research park will be home to the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering as well as the proposed joint data center.

The $46 million, 10,000-square-foot, 4 megawatt data center will provide computer server space for A&T, UNCG, the nanotech school and possibly any other centers that locate at the research park’s southern campus.

Donna Heath, UNCG associate vice chancellor of information technology, said she was unaware of Bowman’s book but does not see another data center as competition.

“The primary goal of this facility is to serve the universities and their research,” she said. “Any additional information technology infrastructure in the region will be a boost to economic development.”

“It’s all about clustering,” Lynch said. “Nobody likes to be a pioneer ... There’s comfort in the fact that other people do what you do.”

Last month, the General Assembly approved $1.8 million in the 2008-09 budget for the design phase of the universities’ data center.

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or richard.barron@news-record.com