Google named as end user for second Montgomery County data center site

Google will be the end user for Project Spade, the second of two data center projects to be located in Montgomery County.

The planned Google data center will be in the southeast quadrant of the Interstate 70 and Highway 19 interchange and consists of approximately 780 acres in Montgomery County and 130 acres in New Florence.

The first project, titled Project Green, is an Amazon Web Services project located northeast of New Florence.

According to information provided by Greater Montgomery County Economic Development Council consultant Steve Etcher, the developer for the Google project is Related Digital.

The site plan for the Google proposal was originally approved in November. Since approval of the site plan, Etcher said some amendments have been made to the plan.

While the original plan envisioned three structures at 1,080,920 square feet, Etcher said the plan has been amended for two structures of approximately 800,000 square feet per building. The project will use a closed-loop air-cooled system, which Etcher explained is a system which forces air across chilled water pipes to cool the chips.

The original proposal said two wells will be located on-site, primarily for employee water use. Multiple stormwater management ponds are proposed within the project. The site will be fully fenced and include both an Ameren owned substation and an applicant owned substation. The site will also include a security guard station, visitor center with parking, a pump house and water filtration building.

Etcher said there will be a full-scale project announcement when all agreements are finalized.

“Google is excited about Montgomery County as the potential location of Project Spade and we are looking forward to collaborating closely with local leaders and stakeholders on this project,” Google Regional Head of Data Center Public Affairs Trystine Payfer said in an emailed statement.

The statement also says that the facility will generate thousands of construction jobs during the building phase and hundreds of full-time jobs once the facility is operational.

According to Related Digital’s website, the facility will deliver 1.2 gigawatts of utility capacity. Construction on the project is expected to begin this year.