Facebook to Expand Fort Worth Data Center

Facebook Fort Worth Data Center Expansion. Image courtesy of Facebook

Facebook has unveiled plans to add a new, 170,000-square-foot facility to its Fort Worth Data Center. The company will begin construction immediately and expects to wrap up the development by 2022.

The cost of the expansion will amount to $200 million, the Dallas Business Journal reported. DPR Construction serves as the general contractor for the project. 

The company began work at 4500 Like Way in July 2015 with a 500,000-square-foot facility developed by DPR Fortis Mission Critical. Over the past five years, the social media company has continuously expanded the site with new facilities. Upon full build-out, the Fort Worth digital campus will encompass more than 2.6 million square feet with an investment exceeding $1.5 billion. The digital park is LEED Gold-certified and runs entirely on renewable energy.

The new building will be used for what the company calls “cold storage,” hosting older posts or photos that are not accessed frequently. The property will house servers that are powered on only when needed, providing a sustainable solution to preserving that data. In March 2015, Facebook introduced its “On This Day” feature, where users can access their old posts. In June 2018, the feature was renamed “Memories.”

In August, the company broke ground on its $800 million data center in Gallatin, Tenn. That facility will span 982,000 square feet and will be Facebook’s 13th data center in the U.S.