Windows of Corn Fields; Microsofts Plans Big DataCenter Expansion in Iowa
October 2014
Build it and they will come… well techies anyway. Microsoft is building even larger in Iowa. The company today unveiled plans to invest a whopping $1.1 billion in a new data center campus in West Des Moines, where it already operates a large server farm. The project will be one of the largest in the history of the data center industry, with plans calling for 1.2 million square feet of facilities across a 154-acre property.
The announcement ends the suspense about the identity of the mustery company behind Project Alluvion, the latest in a series of stealthy “codename” projects that have made Iowa a major data center destination. Combined with the existing Microsoft data center, the Alluvion project brings the total investment in the state to just under $1.9 billion.
According to plans, Microsoft will take over 154 acres of land and construct a more than 1.2 million square foot data center. The project Alluvion site is approximately 7 miles east from the current Microsoft data center in West Des Moines, and negotiations for land are what had previously put the project on hold.
The Iowa Economic Development Authority Board approved granting Microsoft a $20.3 million sales tax rebate for the project. That tax rebate would be available until 2021. Those state incentives come on top of the $18 million in incentives already promised by West Des Moines. The value that Microsoft brings back to the city translates to around $8 million a year in property taxes. Microsoft will create 84 jobs when fully built out, with 66 of those jobs required to have a wage of $24.32 an hour.
Microsoft originally built in West Des Moines in 2008, with a major $677.6 million expansion last year. That expansion was part of a $1.4 billion sum that all data center projects brought to the state in 2013. Iowa officials are quickly assembling economic incentives to seal the deal. The Register reports that the state signed off on Microsoft’s proposal to reduce the size of the project, cutting state tax credits the project could receive from $2.1 million to about $590,000. West Des Moines on Monday agreed to spend $7.8 million on infrastructure improvements around the project, and today the state Economic Development Board is expected to act on a request from West Des Moines for $1.9 million to help with up to $11 million in road and utility improvements around the proposed Microsoft project.
