Proposed data center project off
The 2 million-square-foot “hyperscale data center campus” proposed for Great Falls by Atlanta-based Ardent TAC Data Centers is off.
The company was planning an investment of $1 billion to $1.5 billion on a 569-acre site adjacent to the AgriTech Park.
Great Falls Development Alliance announced the project with Ardent during their June 17 annual meeting.
Jolene Schalper, GFDA vice president, told The Electric on Nv. 18 that some projects announce early to start the conversation and their due diligence.
GFDA announces $1 billion proposed data center project
For this project, it appeared power wasn’t going to meet their timetable, so the Great Falls location didn’t work out for them.
Schalper said that GFDA is not recruiting data centers, but in researching for the proposed TAC project, they’ve seen that there’s room for growth in that industry.
She said they’ve been having conversations on infrastructure, particularly water and power usage. In conversations with community members, they’ve raised further concerns and questions on soils and other environmental issues.
There’s wide variety in types and scale of data centers, she said, and there are some companies that have been providing behind the scenes services for global companies for decades with responsible water and power systems that don’t get as much press as the facilities causing problems popping up nationwide in recent years.
Schalper said GFDA is still fact finding on data centers because they know other companies are eying Montana locations and anticipate being approached, so they want to have more information about the infrastructure needs and whether there’s an appetite for such facilities in the community.
She said that current construction in AgriTech Park is for Admiral Beverage’s new facility, not any data centers.
Researching the needs and demands of data centers now allows for a community conversation of whether locals want that type of industry and how to make sure it best serves the community if approved.
TAC was under contract to purchase 569 acres owned by the Roehm family, sitting on the eastern side of the city, across from the AgriTech industrial park and north of Malmstrom Air Force Base. It’s outside the city limits and the project would have had to go through the city’s annexation and zoning process.
They’ve let go of that option on the land.
The project was estimated to create 1,500 to 2,000 construction jobs and 150-200 permanent positions.
The proposed data center was dubbed Project Cardinal and was different than the mystery manufacturing project GFDA talked about during a city commission work session last fall, which is dubbed Project Falcon.
Ardent said in a project overview that it was in NorthWestern Energy’s queue for a transmission study, “but progress has been slow and timelines are still unclear. Montana is a regulated electricity market which means NorthWestern controls the transmission infrastructure. This adds some complexity which we are working on navigating as we will need additional sources of power generation which will be required to interconnect through the NorthWestern transmission grid. We’ve had productive discussions with power including Berkshire Hathaway Montana, BHE Canada, and AlbertaEx as well as three or four other power generation sources but we cannot proceed further without
NorthWestern’s cooperation.”
Ardent requested 500-600 megawatts critical load from NorthWestern and other power generation sources with two planned onsite substations, one owned by Ardent, the other owned by the power company.
Ardent has a conceptual site plan with one-story buildings but the transmission study results will determine substation requirements and necessary infrastructure upgrades.
The project is subject to securing the needed power generation and transmission.
Ardent said in their overview that they expect zoning, permitting securing power to take 12-18 months, and initial construction would follow with the first phases online by late 2027 to early 2028, according to Ardent. The full campus buildout was projected by 2030.
