Real estate firm COPT Defense Properties has acquired land outside Des Moines, Iowa, likely for a data center campus.

Citing Dallas County property records, Business Record reports COPT Defense Properties, through IA 340 Trail LLC, paid $24.6 million for more than 300 acres of land in Van Meter.

Van Meter is a city in Dallas County, Iowa, situated along the Raccoon River. It is located west of Des Moines and east of De Soto.

Liz Faust, Van Meter’s city administrator, told the Record that the entity that bought the land “is not the end user” and the parcels purchased by COPT were rezoned “specifically to attract a data center. … It’s safe to say [the proposed development] is a data center project.”

COPT officials have reportedly told local officials that the tenant would be a “heavy power user” and that multiple buildings are planned on the campus.

Founded in 1988 as Royale Investments, Inc. and formerly known as Corporate Office Properties Trust, COPT develops, owns, and operates real estate across the US. The company mostly serves the US government, with a focus on defense.

COPT owns more than 6 million sq ft (557,420 sqm) of data shell space across some 30 single-tenant facilities – many as joint ventures with Blackstone. As well as government, the company targets hyperscale customers for its data centers.

Microsoft, which has a large number of data center projects around Des Moines, acquired more than 370 acres of land in Van Meter earlier this year. According to Faust, the tech giant could begin construction of a data center campus on the recently purchased land in December or early 2025.

Microsoft plans to build at least 10 data centers in the park. The data centers would each be about 227,000 square feet, she added.