Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), via a project named Morgan, received approval from the Planning & Zoning Commission of Waukee, Iowa to build the first phase, comprising ~400k sqft, of a data center campus located 18 miles west of Des Moines, the capital city of Iowa. Ultimately, Apple plans to build a total of 6 data centers spanning nearly 2 million sqft, at this location.

Apple Waukee Iowa Data Center Exterior

When Apple first announced the project, ~4.5 years ago in August 2017, the development involved a total investment of $1.375bn.

Apple – Waukee (Des Moines), Iowa – Data Center Campus

Apple’s Des Moines data center development project is located at 2995 W. Hickman Road in the northwest section of the city of Waukee, Iowa. Specifically, the property is situated north of Hickman Road, between S Avenue and T Avenue.

Apple received approval to develop one lot, comprising ~592 acres of land, which represents only a portion of the property that the company owns in the northwest of Waukee, Iowa. Indeed, Apple controls over 2,000 acres, between T Avenue, R-16, 280th Street, and 300th Street.

Phase 1

Apple’s site plan for the first phase of its Waukee, Iowa data center project involves the construction of a number of buildings, including a data center facility, as well as office & administration, maintenance, and network distribution buildings. Collectively, these buildings comprise 398.5k sqft, of which, the data center represents 315.8k sqft, as shown below:

BuildingPurposesqft
WKE.01Data Center315.8k
WKE.91Office & Administration63.3k
WKE.93Maintenance10.5k
WKE.51 to 54Network Distribution8.8k
Total – Phase 1398.5k

In terms of timing, Apple will begin construction on the first phase of its Iowa data center campus during 2022.

Future Phases

Subsequently, Apple will develop the remainder of its land as future data center phases. However, these forthcoming build-outs will require additional site plan approvals from the Planning & Zoning Commission of Waukee, Iowa.

Apple Waukee Iowa Site Map Future

As shown above, Apple’s site plan identifies a further 5 buildings, for a total of 6 data centers, to be built on the land. Particularly, these data centers, labelled as WKE.02, WKE.03, WKE.04, WKE.05, and WKE.06 will be equal in size to Apple’s first, WKE.01, building.

Assuming, all 6 data centers were built-out, Apple’s campus would span nearly 2 million sqft in total, including ancillary buildings:

BuildingPurposesqft
WKE.01Data Center315.8k
WKE.02Data Center315.8k
WKE.03Data Center315.8k
WKE.04Data Center315.8k
WKE.05Data Center315.8k
WKE.06Data Center315.8k
WKE.91, 93, 51 to 54Ancillary82.7k
Total – Full Build-Out1.98m

Presently, Apple has not disclosed a timeline as to when the remaining data center buildings will be constructed.

READ MORE: Apple’s Data Center Locations

Power

MidAmerican Energy, an electric utility company owned by Berkshire Hathaway, will construct a substation to supply the future data center campus with utility power. Specifically, this substation will be located in the center of the property, on the east side.

Mary Zhang covers Data Centers for Dgtl Infra, including Equinix (NASDAQ: EQIX), Digital Realty (NYSE: DLR), CyrusOne, CoreSite Realty, QTS Realty, Switch Inc, Iron Mountain (NYSE: IRM), Cyxtera (NASDAQ: CYXT), and many more. Within Data Centers, Mary focuses on the sub-sectors of hyperscale, enterprise / colocation, cloud service providers, and edge computing. Mary has over 5 years of experience in research and writing for Data Centers.

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