Another data center campus is coming to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
As reported by local press, including Corridor Business, the Gazette, and KCRG, SNA LLC is proposing to develop a 560-acre data center campus along 76th Avenue SW within the Big Cedar Industrial Center – adjacent to a planned Google campus.
The $750 million project would have at least two phases of development – with each phase estimated to include one or more data center buildings each approximately 300,000-1.4 million square feet (27,870-130,065 sqm) in size.
At its meeting this week, the Cedar Rapids City Council approved a series of tax breaks for the project – including a 20-year, 70 percent rebate of additional property taxes generated by each phase of the development.
Under the tax deal, construction of the first phase has to commence within three years of the agreement and be completed within six; phase two needs to start within three years of the first phase’s completion.
Details on the intended end user for the campus were not shared.
Likewise, details on the developer are unclear at this point. While not confirmed to be linked, QTS is known to be affiliated with the similarly-named company SNA NE LLC. QTS didn’t reply to the Gazette’s request for comment.
Cedar Rapids, in Linn County, is located around 120 miles east of Des Moines. It is not traditionally a large data center market.
In March, however, Google was named as the company behind a large planned data center campus in the area.
Working behind the name Heaviside LLC, the search firm aims to develop a $576 million data center campus along 76th Avenue SW and Edgewood Road SW in the Big Cedar Industrial Center.
Construction on the first Google data center is set to start in Q2 2024 for a 2026 go-live date. The company is said to be planning at least two buildings at the site.
Owned by Alliant Energy, the Big Cedar Industrial Center is a 1.390-acre industrial site. A brochure from the energy firm suggests the site currently has 85MW of excess capacity, with opportunities for future substations to take the whole center to 1.2GW.
