CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – In less than a week, the name of the company planning to build a massive multi-million-dollar data collection center in Cedar Rapids should be made public.
The project, currently known as Heaviside LLC., was announced last month. The name of the company won’t be announced until the state economic development authority approves tax incentives for the project.
The project is expected to be built on the Southwest side of Cedar Rapids near the airport.
“It’s the largest project the city has ever accomplished,” said Cedar Rapids Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell.
Mayor O’Donnell said the current property across from the Edgewood Logistic Park could house multiple buildings holding massive computing systems, but it all starts with one that will cost $576,000,000 to build. She said it’s the largest development in the city’s history.
“It hasn’t been for a lack of trying,” she said, “This is our first successful mega site project.”
O’Donnell said the project, only known as Heaviside, has been in the works for the last 5-years, but it wasn’t until recently that they were able to come up with an agreement with the company.
“The city was trying to do our level best to try and compete with the other places they were looking, and they left,” said Mayor O’Donnell. “Then for some unknown reason to us, they came back with an urgency.”
Mayor O’Donnell said if the IEDA approves tax credits next week, it could boost tax revenue in 20 years. But she said even more importantly that it was another first-of-its-kind agreement. The company has agreed to give the city up to $400,000 for each building it adds for the next 15 years.
“If we get five of our six buildings, that could mean $36 million that the city gets to put back into our community,” she said.
There are still a lot of unknowns the city is working through before the project is set in stone, but O’Donnell said this will likely be the beginning.
“I anticipate that other data centers would be looking in the metro for further opportunities,” said Mayor O’Donnell. “What we’re hearing from the data center folks is that AI has really created a need to develop these facilities.”
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