Meta Brings $1B Data Center Online
The development is part of Diode Ventures’ 5.5 million-square-foot technology campus.
Meta, parent company of Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms, has brought its hyperscale data center in Kansas City, Mo., online.
Announced in early 2022, the roughly 1 million-square-foot project initially was estimated to cost $800 million and had been scheduled for completion this past year.
The development is sited within Golden Plains Technology Park, a 5.5 million-square-foot data center campus, near I-435 and U.S. Highway 169 in Kansas City’s Northland submarket. Golden Plains is being developed by local company Diode Ventures, a wholly owned subsidiary of Black & Veatch.
Meta noted that, as with all of its data centers, the Kansas City facility is certified LEED Gold and further, that its electricity is matched with 100 percent clean and renewable energy. Also on the green side, the use during construction of storm water from onsite retention ponds reportedly saved more than 1 million gallons of potable water.
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Brad Davis, Meta’s data center community and economic development director, stated that Kansas City’s “excellent infrastructure [and] robust electrical grid” were significant factors in Meta’s choice of KC for this project.
Turner Construction was the general contractor.
Meta reportedly donated more than $1 million to schools and nonprofits in Clay County, Platte County and the City of Kansas City.
Keeping the Great Plains great
A recent report from Cushman & Wakefield ranked Kansas City sixth among the emerging data center markets in the Americas.
“Growing demand for large-scale power, abundant land and relaxed latency requirements for AI has also driven hyperscalers and operators to expand into historically peripheral markets like Indianapolis, Kansas City and the Carolinas,” the report added.
Earlier in August, Meta selected Pacific Investment Management and Blue Owl to secure a $29 billion financing deal supporting its data center expansion in Louisiana. Pimco reportedly will issue $26 billion in debt, and it’s expected that Blue Owl will provide $3 billion in equity.
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