The city of Huntsville has scored another major economic development, a $750 million data center that will enhance the Rocket City's high-tech reputation.

The facility will create at least 50 high-paying jobs, according to Shane Davis, the city's director of urban and economic development.

The city council voted unanimously at Thursday night's meeting to approve a project development agreement between the city and Starbelt, a limited liability company formed last year. Starbelt was formed by the company bringing the data center to Huntsville.

The identity of that company has not been revealed but a formal announcement of the development is expected next month.

It's the second major development in Huntsville announced this year - preceded, of course, by the Mazda Toyota Manufacturing USA project that will include a $1.6 billion investment and create 4,000 direct jobs.

Davis told the council that Starbelt has agreed to purchase 340 acres at $8.5 million in North Huntsville Industrial Park and will be next door to Aerojet Rocketdyne - a 2017 economic victory for the city that will create about 700 jobs - as well as the Toyota Motor Manufacturing facility.

Details were sparse about the project in the presentation to the council and Davis declined to comment further after the meeting.

Under the code name Project Cricket, Davis told the council it was a competitive industrial development project that considered several locations. Starbelt "would construct and operate a large-scale data center campus for the purpose of storing, processing and serving customer-based data needs."

The data center has similar characteristics to the Google Data Center in Bridgeport in northeast Alabama. The Google facility is being built on about 500 acres in Jackson County and will employ about 75 to 100 people.

The Starbelt data center also holds an option to purchase an additional 203 acres in the industrial park at $25,000 per acre.

The jobs at Starbelt will pay at least $80,000 per year, Davis told the council. He said he expected it would be a mixture of out-of-state and local employees filling those jobs.

Huntsville landed the project, Davis told the council, by meeting key project site considerations:

Development-ready site

Reliable utility infrastructure

Educated and available workforce

Pro-business environment

Community quality of life

The city of Huntsville will provide about $6.6 million in non-direct incentives, Davis told the council. Those incentives include the waiving of permitting fees, a $2 million value, as well as various infrastructure work with a price tag of about $4.6 million.

Other incentives for the project will come the Madison County Commission, the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce, TVA, Huntsville Utilities and the state of Alabama, Davis said.

The return on investment for the city of Huntsville, Madison County and the city and county school systems over 20 years, Davis said, would be about $165 million.

The data center represents the type of economic development the city of Huntsville is "actively recruiting," according to the resolution approved by the council.

"The city has been actively recruiting major data centers as part of its efforts to market and bring high tech, cybersecurity and other 'internet of things' enterprises to the city," the resolution said, "to continue the diversification of the city's economic, employment base and corporate citizenry and to grow the city's national and international reputation as a hub for sophisticated, high-tech engineering, research and development, 'internet of things' and advanced manufacturing enterprises."