CIM, Novva Land $2B for Data Center Development
This campus will span 1 million square feet at full build-out.
In the second-biggest data center construction loan so far this year, CIM Group and Novva Data Centers have secured $2 billion in financing from J.P. Morgan and Starwood Property Trust. The loan will enable Novva to complete the second and third phases of the 100-acre data center campus in the Salt Lake City suburb of West Jordan, Utah. It will be one of the largest direct-to-chip cooled AI data centers in the world.
Image courtesy of CIM Group and Novva Data Centers
The significant financing deal comes as the AI data center demand grows. In January, J.P. Morgan provided a $2.3 billion loan to the joint venture of Blue Owl Capital, Crusoe Energy Systems and Primary Digital Infrastructure for the development of a build-to-suit data center project in Abilene, Texas. The campus will be designed, developed and operated by Crusoe.
Novva’s Salt Lake City campus, up close
Construction of the second phase at Novva’s Salt Lake City campus began in December 2023 and is slated for completion in 2026. Phase 3 construction began in January 2024 and is also expected to deliver by 2026. Both phases will feature 318,000-square-foot data centers and each will have the capacity to produce 72 megawatts of critical IT load.
The 175 megawatt campus, which will span about 1 million square feet when completed, was fully leased in 2023 to a leading global tech company. The first phase began operations in 2023 and has the ability to operate without water year-round and cool with ambient air. When fully operational, the complex is expected to consume approximately 84 percent less water than similar data centers in the region.
READ ALSO: From Data Center YIMBY to NIMBY?
The project is taking shape at 6477 Wells Park Road, roughly 18 miles from Salt Lake City International Airport and 22 miles from downtown Salt Lake City. The property has access to four long-haul fiber routes and includes a 200 megawatt substation with N+1 redundancy.
The location is attractive for data center operations because it offers low-cost power, low disaster risk, low latency, no sales tax on equipment purchases and a high-altitude cold desert climate, Novva CEO Wes Swenson said in prepared remarks.
J.P. Morgan acted as lead arranger and Starwood Property Trust acted as arranger for the financing. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP served as legal counsel for CIM Group and Novva Data Centers.
Data center growth
The Salt Lake City property is Novva’s flagship. The firm also operates data centers in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Las Vegas. Other developments will come online in Reno, Nev., San Francisco and Mesa, Ariz.
Novva announced plans for the Mesa campus in August 2024. The company is expected to invest more than $3 billion over the next decade on the 160-acre property marking its first foray into Arizona. The first phase will have 96 megawatts of capacity and is slated for completion in late 2026.
You must be logged in to post a comment.