Google celebrated its arrival in the Lowcountry on Tuesday with a ribbon cutting at its $600 million data center in Mount Holly Commerce Park, off U.S. Highway 52 between Goose Creek and Moncks Corner.

Gov. Mark Sanford, the mayors of Goose Creek and Moncks Corner, and Berkeley County Supervisor Dan Davis spoke at the event, The Berkeley Independent reported. Google had offered 50 Berkeley County residents, chosen at random from those who registered, a chance to attend with a guest, The Post and Courier reported.

Visitors got a rare look at the 500-acre site, but nobody was allowed inside the building. Andy Johnson, Google’s manager of global data center development, cited competitive reasons and the privacy of users whose data may be stored on the servers, according to The Post and Courier.

“All of us are at the epicenter of world-class, leading technology that we can all be proud of,” Goose Creek Mayor Michael Heitzler said, according to the newspaper.

“This community embodies Google’s creative, entrepreneurial and hard-working culture,” Johnson said, according to The Berkeley Independent.

The center is still in its testing phase, and a second, identical building is under construction nearby, The Post and Courier reported. Johnson would not say how many people Google has hired so far. About 200 are expected to work there once the site is fully running in a few years, according to the newspaper.

Cool water will circulate through pipes to keep the equipment from overheating, and the facility could use up to 1 million gallons a day, the newspaper reported. Executives said the building was designed to use half the electricity most data centers need.

Google also gave the timber cut from the site to Trident United Way, a gift worth $500,000, Chris Kerrigan, the charity’s chief executive, said at the event, according to The Berkeley Independent. He called it the largest corporate gift the charity has received. The money is paying for an after-school program at St. Stephen Elementary and St. Stephen Middle schools, the newspaper reported.

Sanford said the project took work from many people. “A lot of people have worked very hard to make this possible,” he said, according to The Berkeley Independent.

Jeff Stevenson, a 1991 Citadel graduate, has been named the center’s program manager, The Post and Courier reported.