Award: Data center
Value: $1 billion investment
Location: Beaver Dam, Wisconsin
Client: Meta
Minneapolis-based Mortenson will soon develop a site in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, to house a 700,000-square-foot Meta data center.
Meta, parent company of Facebook, announced a $1 billion investment into the construction of the campus, which marks the company’s 30th data center worldwide and 26th in the United States, according to a Nov. 12 news release. Mortenson will serve as the general contractor, Steve Knighton, vice president and general manager for Mortenson’s data center operations, told Construction Dive.
Construction of the Beaver Dam campus will rely heavily on advanced construction technology, said Knighton. Mortenson plans to use BIM coordination tools, live digital underground utility mapping, drone data capture, robotic automated construction layout and Meta Quest for VR reviews of the project with stakeholders, he said.
In its release, Meta highlighted the campus’ dry-cooling systems, which will eliminate water demand for cooling once operation begins. The company also plans to restore 100% of the water consumed by the data center to local watersheds.
The emphasis comes as water use has increasingly drawn scrutiny nationwide, with recent debates in Arizona and California centered on whether AI-heavy data center projects can align with environmental needs. Beaver Dam residents have raised concerns about the Meta facility’s water use to local media outlets.
In addition to the data center, Meta will underwrite nearly $200 million in energy infrastructure investments to cover costs associated with building the campus, including network upgrades and utility substations, according to the release. Large contractors, including AECOM, have emphasized the ancillary demand data center builds are creating for energy and power station construction. Meta said it will also restore 570 acres of wetlands and prairie surrounding the data center site.
The buildout arrives at a moment when data center construction continues to outpace most other nonresidential building sectors. Roughly one in seven contractors hold data center contracts, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors survey. Those firms also report significantly higher backlog than builders without similar work, according to ABC.
The tech giant expects the facility to complete in 2027, a Meta spokesperson told Construction Dive.
