Microsoft buys more land in Mount Pleasant near data center development 

Microsoft is buying up more land in the village of Mount Pleasant for its planned $3.3 billion AI data center development. 

In the past week, the company purchased 173 acres in the village, spending $33.89 million on five separate tracts near the development site, according to property records from the Wisconsin Department of Revenue. 

All the newly purchased land is along Louis Sorenson Road near the main data center development site, according to a project overview. The purchases were recorded on July 24 and July 26, according to the property records.

Microsoft also purchased 32.1 acres at 12721 Louis Sorenson Road in May for $8.8 million.

Local officials couldn’t be reached for comment Monday, but a spokesperson sent a joint statement from village, Racine County, the Milwaukee 7 Partnership and the Racine County Economic Development Corporation.

“We are pleased that Microsoft is increasing its land holdings north of Highway 11 in Mount Pleasant and Racine County,” the statement said. “Microsoft is a highly-valued corporate partner and we are grateful for the significant investments they are already making in our community. We celebrate this land acquisition as we look forward to many more years of partnership to come.”

In all, the company now owns over 1,200 acres in Racine County.

The purchases come nearly three months after Microsoft announced its intention to invest $3.3 billion on the data center project in the area once slated for development by Foxconn. The plans were revealed at an event in Mount Pleasant attended by President Joe Biden. 

The project is an expansion of plans Microsoft announced last year to develop data centers in the area the village had set aside for Foxconn. The Foxconn project originally promised an investment of $9 billion and the creation of 13,000 jobs, but it never came to fruition.

The data center project is expected to bring over 2,000 union construction jobs to the area by the end of the year.

Ryan Harkins, the senior director of public policy for Microsoft, spoke about the project in May. He compared Mount Pleasant’s data center project to a similar development in West Des Moines, Iowa

“It’s a big facility that essentially aggregates lots and lots of computing power,” Harkins said.

“You need a lot of infrastructure in order to house the data that’s required to train the models and then also to bring to bear the computing power that is required to train the models,” he added.

Harkins said data center projects are housed in “warehouse size facilities.” He also said engineers and “other employees” will work at the location to manage and maintain the facility.