COPT Van Meter Campus

COPT Defense Properties is planning a significant data center campus outside Des Moines, Iowa. The company has acquired a 365-acre land parcel in Van Meter, a city west of Des Moines, for $32 million. This gigawatt-scale campus will feature approximately 3.3 million square feet of development space and 1GW of power capacity. The site is expected to house 15 buildings, each spanning 220,000 square feet, along with two substations.

Stephen E. Budorick, COPT Defense’s president and CEO, highlighted that this acquisition provides a significant opportunity to expand their data center shell program to a new market. Des Moines is already a major hyperscale market, attracting some of the largest hyperscalers in the world due to its attractive land values, power availability, access to renewable energy, long-haul fiber lines, and supportive state and local government tax incentives.