A vacant warehouse in Provo, Utah, is set to make way for a data center.

First reported by ABC4, B+F Timpanogos is looking to redevelop a warehouse property in Provo into a data center.

The two requests, set to be discussed at a Provo planning commission meeting next week, are seeking a zoning amendment to add a warehouse at 1507 S 180 E in Provo to the city’s data center overlay district and approval for a 66,000 sq ft (6,131 sqm), two-story data center.

Set to initially offer around 5MW with the potential to reach 30MW of IT capacity, the facility would be grid-connected, rather than use on-site generation. Provo Power would be the utility provider.

Totaling 132,000 sq ft (12,263 sqm) across both floors, the site would use a closed-loop cooling system to reduce water use. It will rely on natural gas for its backup generators, however. Some $280 million could be invested in to the project.

Plans to run the site primarily through on-site generation have been dropped, according to city documents.

Provo is a city some 43 miles (69 km) south of Salt Lake City and the county seat of Utah County. The city adopted a data center overlay zone to its ordinances last year to better control where facilities could and couldn’t be built.

Set on nine acres, city documents suggest the existing 50,000 sq ft (4,645 sqm) single-story warehouse building has been vacant “for some time.”

The site was previously part of the networking software firm Novell’s campus. Founded in 1983, the Provo-based company was acquired by Attachmate in 2011, which in turn was acquired by Micro Focus in 2014, which itself was acquired by OpenText in 2023.

Online listings suggest care services provider Chrysalis previously occupied the building.

City staff have recommended approval of both requests for the project.

The city documents note that the proposed overlay zone does not allow data centers to be located within 200 ft (60 m) of a property with a school. While the property to the south of the proposed data center has a charter school, the property with the school is owned by the same owner as the proposed data center, and they plan to adjust the property lines on that property to be able to meet this requirement.