SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — A proposed data center in Deuel County has seen some progress as Deuel County commissioners were able to tour one of the company’s data centers in North Dakota.
Applied Digital hopes to build a multi-billion dollar data center in Deuel County near Toronto, South Dakota.
Deuel County Commissioners were able to take a tour of one of Applied Digitals data centers near Ellendale, North Dakota.
Deuel County Commission Chair, Jay Grabow, said there is a lot going into that building after the tour of the North Dakota Facility.
“It’s all built out of concrete, a lot of moving parts, a lot of cooling systems, pumps, and 3-foot diameter pipes running around for all the cooling and of course, fiber optics and cables running all over the place for all the data coming in,” Grabow said. “The one in dual County will only be 40 ft high. The one in Ellendale is designed to be the fastest computer in the world, the one in County will not quite.”
The initial plan for the center calls for two buildings at 907,000 square feet per building, having 20 acres per building, roughly 1.8 million square feet total and 150-200 acres.
Grabow said with a large project like this they had a couple of concerns, one of them being that they had of ours to make sure we knew exactly how many people would be in the area.
“So our first question was, are all 200 of those jobs in that data center or a bunch of those remote access your computer? And they informed us that all 200 of those are on site,” Grabow said. “I believe the one in Ellendale they would like to have 100 of their people living right in Ellendale, that was a concern of ours to make sure we knew exactly how many people would be in the area.”
According to Applied Digital, the center would provide jobs to 300-600 construction workers, as well as providing 200 jobs in the facility, adding that once built and would likely be one of the largest property tax payers within the state.
Grabow said the other concern they had was regarding traffic and how construction workers as well as new employees will mesh with the city’s traffic.
“How do we contend with the traffic for both construction workers and for full-time employees. The construction workers, that’s a bit of a tussle. There’s a lot going on at that time and some of the issues there, you know, we’re gonna have to expect applied digital to do something with the roads out there because in County that’s the township road, so that’ll have to be built up and possibly asphalted.” Grabow said.”
Grabow said there is public interest in the project and there will be more information regarding the project to answer peoples questions.
“There’s more meetings to be had by the commissioners to educate the public on what exactly is happening, what’s going on, and there’s the same concerns, the traffic concerns, new people moving into the area, will crime be an issue? How will this affect our taxes?” Grabow said. “We would hope that that would lower everyone else’s taxes, instead of taking the chance that we’re going to spend the extra tax dollars, we would like to see used to lower the tax dollars of the rest of the people in Deuel County.”
The projects next steps are to head through the county’s zoning boars where they will develop some ordinances to regulate the center. he added that they are also working with state legislators to discuss some economic benefits for the state.
