WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — The West Des Moines City Council has approved an agreement from Microsoft for the tech giant to build a sixth data center within city limits.
The city already has five data centers, which serve as sites for data storage on a cloud for peoples' devices and powering artificial intelligence platforms in Dallas, Polk and Warren counties.
The sixth center will be built off Veterans Parkway near the city of Cumming, which is south of West Des Moines.
"We don't get prospects like that too often," West Des Moines Economic Development Director Ryan Moffatt told Local 5 News. "To be able to put our stamp on six of those within our community, I think that's tremendous."
Construction for the newest site will begin in the latter half of 2025, Moffat said, and will run 100% off of renewable energy, primarily wind energy.
With that sixth center now announced, Microsoft's total planned investment will exceed $6 billion, the city reports.
The economic impact the company has had what sticks out to Moffat, who added: "Our hope is that when people see that it's a safe place to invest here, with that kind of dollar figure, that will bring other companies here as well."
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Moffat mentioned that no grants or tax abatements were provided for this project, but the city reports Microsoft data centers have added over $2 billion to its local property tax base.
Aside from the money flowing into the city, the center will create more jobs as well.
In fact, the prior five data centers added over 400 permanent jobs total, and that number is slated to increase over the coming years. Over 3,000 construction jobs were added previously to build the tech giant's other centers, specializing in licensed trades like electricians and HVAC contractors.
The city plans to invest millions of dollars in the next two years to build new roads, sewers and water mains near the future Microsoft data center to improve the infrastructure of the overall area.