Meta, Facebook’s parent company, eyes data center in Rosemount
FILE - Attendees visit the Meta booth at the Game Developers Conference 2023, March 22, 2023, in San Francisco. Meta will continue to face a hefty fine over advertising practices that Norwegian regulators say violate user privacy, per a new court ruling. In July, Norway’s data protection authority, Datatilsynet, announced a “temporary ban” of behavioral advertising — a common marketing model that profiles users by collecting information like their physical locations, among other data — without adequate consent on Facebook and Instagram. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
A company owned by Facebook’s parent company, Meta, is planning to buy a 280-acre plot of land in Rosemount for a data center.
The Minnesota Board of Regents’ Finance and Operations Committee voted to approve the proposed $39.7 million sale during its meeting Thursday afternoon.
The land is part of the university’s UMore Park, located along the south side of County Road 42 around Dakota County Technical College, and has been marketed for several years. It was also rezoned by Rosemount from agricultural use to business park planned development.
While there are still many more steps before the project will be finalized, the sale proceeds would go into the university’s UMore Park Legacy Fund. The closing on the sale could happen before the end of January.
Board of Regents documents identify the buyer as Jimnist LLC, which is owned by Meta.
While many details of the plan are still unclear, the board’s agenda says the company is seeking to use the land for a technology campus.
An Oct. 31 filing from Xcel Energy with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC), which would need to approve Xcel’s contracts for the project, states that the buyer expects to pour at least $700 million into the data center, which would be expected to support at least 50 full-time jobs and 150 indirect jobs. Additionally, the filing says the project would create an estimated 1,000 construction jobs during the two- to five-year building period.
The companies had been secretive about plans for the project but Meta confirmed in a separate PUC filing on Friday that it is the parent company of the prospective buyer.