The next step in the construction of a hyperscale data center in northeast El Paso has been taken with the final purchase of the site where it will be built.
The company Meta Platforms, Incorporated indicated late last year that it was buying just a little over 1,000 vacant acres off Stan Roberts Sr. Avenue to build what will be a five-phase campus.
Based in Menlo Park, California, Meta Platforms was formerly called Facebook, and logged revenues last year of nearly $135 billion.
Always on the search for new data center property, Meta put down $8.5 million to buy the City of El Paso-owned land, while announcing that it expected to spend upwards of $2.8 billion on facility expansion and upgrade work between now and the year 2050.
Meta Platforms, which also operates the hugely popular Instagram and WhatsApp services, has not released a construction schedule for the new center and, according to a sales contract, may take up to five years to develop the property.
With just under two dozen data centers across the globe, Meta Platforms in 2022 announced plans to build a new $800 million facility in Temple, Texas, some 600 miles to the east of El Paso.
That Temple project was temporarily put on hold while the company recalibrated its design, a design geared to support Artificial Intelligence systems. Work re-started on the Temple facility around six months ago.
The company also announced earlier this year that it is building a 700,000-square-foot facility in Jeffersonville, Indiana, along with a structure of similar dimensions in Rosemont, Indiana.
As part of its agreement with the City of El Paso, Meta Platforms may be eligible for up to a total of $110 million over time in tax rebates.
By Garry Boulard