Nebraska Town Acquires Land for Project Edge

There's been no announcement of the final site for Project Edge, which could bring more than $1 billion in investment for a data center campus in either Nebraska or Iowa. But officials in Kearney, Nebraska are confident enough about their chances that the city council has approved spending $1.7 million to acquire land for the project.

On Wednesday night the Kearney City Council voted to buy an additional 53 acres of land adjacent to the Tech One Crossing technology park, which is reportedly among the sites competing for the mystery project. The money includes $1.2 million for land, $300,000 to relocate a drainage canal, and $200,000 for a "carrier hotel" property.

“I hope this motion is the most significant one I’ve made during my 16 years on the council,” council member Don Kearney told the Kearney Hub newspaper.

The company behind Project Edge is looking to break ground in May for a $500 million first-phase. Economic development officials in Nebraska have been aggressively pursuing data center projects in recent years, with its most notable win being as Yahoo facility in La Vista. The state has identified numerous site with the power and fiber infrastructure to support a major data center.

So who is the company behind Project Edge? The field of prospects is narrowed by the scope of the project and the the fact that three of the huge companies best known for secretive site selections – Google, Microsoft and Yahoo – already operate major data centers in the region. Possible candidates include Apple or Facebook, neither of which has a major data center presence in the middle of the country.