Tech giant Microsoft received initial approval this week to move ahead on the third portion of its $3.3 billion Mount Pleasant data center project.
The Mount Pleasant Village Board gave the company the green light to begin mass grading on 791 acres it owns around 11508 Braun Road, which is located just northwest of where Microsoft is already under construction on 2.4 million square feet of data center space.
In the third portion of the development, Microsoft plans another 2 million square feet of data center space within two two-story data center buildings and four single-story data center buildings, according to its current proposal.
Microsoft still needs village approval of detailed site and architectural plans before it can begin construction.
The new project would nearly double the amount of data center space Microsoft is building in Mount Pleasant, for a total of more than 4.4 million square feet.
Work on the first portion of the data center project began last year on around 215 acres at 4800 90th St. and will include three data center buildings with a combined 1.1 million square feet. Earlier this year, Microsoft began developing its second Mount Pleasant data center complex just west of the first site, on around 115 acres. That data center complex is slated to span around 1.3 million square feet.
So far, all of Microsoft’s plans have been for property within the boundaries of Mount Pleasant’s Tax Incremental District No. 5, which was originally created to support Foxconn’s plans to build a massive LCD screen manufacturing complex. Instead Foxconn built a smaller complex where it is manufacturing data servers.
Microsoft owns roughly 1,600 acres in Mount Pleasant as it continues to piece together more property north of TID 5. The company has not commented on its plans for that property.
