Google exploring data center project near Palo

CEDAR RAPIDS — Tech giant Google has approached Linn County officials about a proposed data center project near Palo.

The project was unveiled Monday during the Linn County Board of Supervisors’ work session, where supervisors also approved conducting a study to better understand how the project might affect the county’s water resources.

The project as proposed would include between one and six buildings to be constructed on land within unincorporated Linn County near the Duane Arnold Energy Center. No set timeline has been established, as the proposal still is in its early phases.

“This is the first time the county is considering a data center, and the board wants to make sure that all of the things surrounding it are discussed in public,” said Darrin Gage, the county’s director of policy and administration. “Google has been nothing but receptive” to that.

Linn County Planning and Development Director Charlie Nichols said the county was approached several months ago by a consultant interested in the county’s rules and regulations pertaining to data centers — facilities that house computer servers, data storage and other technical equipment.

As those conversations progressed, Google was identified as the company behind the inquiry with particular interest in land generally located near the Duane Arnold site where NextEra Energy is currently working to restart the nuclear power plant. No exact parcels have yet been identified for data center development.

To further ongoing conversations around the matter and inform any formal board action, Linn County now is taking several steps to gain more information on the topic.

The first is a data center zoning code currently being drafted by county staff to formally outline how and where data centers could be constructed in Linn County. Nichols said the plan is to have that code ready by the end of the year.

Before it can take effect, however, the code must be approved by both the county’s Planning & Zoning Commission and the Board of Supervisors. Opportunities for public feedback will take place prior to any formal vote on the matter.

Second, the county intends to conduct a water resources and water balance study, which will be paid for by Google. That study will gather the available data on Linn County water resources, usage rates and overall availability.

The results of that study will then be used to evaluate how any economic development project — like the Google proposal near Palo — could affect overall availability of the county’s water resources.

“Water is a part of our critical infrastructure, and we want to take into consideration where data centers would be getting their water from (and) how much they would need,” said Supervisor Kirsten Running-Marquardt. As such, “it became obvious we needed to perform (this study).”

Supervisors on Monday approved issuing a request for proposals to seek candidates to complete that study with hopes of having results for review by spring. Those results will be made publicly available, once complete.

Google’s proposal follows a nationwide increase in the number of data center projects cropping up to meet rising power demands associated with artificial intelligence and cloud-hosted data. Already, two large-scale data center projects are underway in southwest Cedar Rapids.

The first is from Google, which is constructing a $576 million data center campus in the Big Cedar Industrial Park. Construction is also underway nearby on a separate, $750 million data center project from QTS.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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