Meta Platforms Inc., parent of social media giants Facebook and Instagram, has picked a Twin Cities suburb for its 19th data center.
Speaking at the Rosemount Community Center on Thursday, Gov. Tim Walz joined local leaders to share more details about the social media company’s 715,000-square-foot center. The new center, they said, is expected to support 100 jobs, along with hundreds of other skilled trades jobs during construction.
Meta is spending about $800 million to build the data center.
Rosemount mayor Jeffery Weisensel said the new center fits into the city’s vision of becoming a “hub of emerging technology.”
“Data centers are the backbone of our digital economy, powering everything from our daily online activities to advanced manufacturing and training,” said Weisensel, who added that the new plant is expected to contribute “millions to local tax revenue.”
Meta uses data centers to house large quantities of servers that hold information for its apps and services. Brad Davis, Meta’s director of data center community and economic development, said the Rosemount data center will be totally powered by renewable energy. That’s notable given the immense power demands generated by data centers.
The company is expected to begin preparing the site for construction immediately, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development said in an email. The center is expected to be completed by 2026.
Plans for the data center had been shrouded in mystery for months. Back in November, Rosemount held an open house for the project, referring to it only as “Project Bigfoot.” Meta is building the center through an entity known as “Jimnist LLC.” Rosemount’s city council officially gave Jimnist approval to build the project in December 2023 despite some residents’ “environmental and business ethics concerns,” local paper Sun ThisWeek reported at the time.
In a winter 2023 newsletter, Rosemount city officials said they sometimes maintain secrecy for the sake of projects by large, publicly-traded companies.
“The reality is that businesses typically ‘shop around’ until they are fairly certain that they have found the right spot to develop,” Rosemount officials said at the time. “In cases of publicly-traded companies, they are sensitive to news of their location and growth plans getting out ahead of official announcements. Plans often have competitive implications for real estate negotiations, employee retention if a relocation is being considered, and potential impacts to stock prices if development plans change or are released ahead of schedule.”
Indeed, Gov. Walz said as much at Thursday’s press conference, noting that Meta had the opportunity to build the center pretty much anywhere. The governor indicated that Minnesota’s tax incentives for data centers likely played a role in Meta’s selection. More than a decade ago, state legislators passed sales tax exemptions for data centers.
The social media company is building the center on 280 acres of the University of Minnesota’s sprawling UMore Park property in Rosemount. The university’s Board of Regents approved the sale of part of the park back in September 2023, KARE-11 reported at the time.
Leslie Krueger, assistant VP of planning, space, and real estate at the U of M, said the federal government originally purchased the wider 4,366-acre property during World War II for a smokeless gunpowder production facility. The U of M bought the land from the federal government in 1947 and 1948 and renamed it UMore Park.
Krueger said that the university plans to use revenue from the sale of the land to invest in farm initiatives and agricultural research.