Google presents Palo data center plans at Oct. 22 open house

Google outlined a proposed $14 billion data center investment near Palo at a packed Oct. 22 open house, offering residents details on jobs, taxes and construction while leaving questions about electricity demand, water consumption and land ownership unresolved.

The Thursday gathering at the Palo Community Center featured a panel presentation, moderated questions and informational stations staffed by Google experts. The proposal still requires city approval for annexation and zoning before construction can proceed.

Google anticipates breaking ground in the first quarter of 2027, bringing the first phase online in the third quarter of 2028 and completing the initial buildout by the third quarter of 2031.

Investment, jobs and local costs

Officials said the project would generate $170 million in tax revenue over a 20-year period, including about $60 million for Palo, more than $30 million for Linn County and more than $75 million for the Cedar Rapids Community School District.

Eric Murray, who works with Google’s land acquisition team, said the company is not seeking tax breaks.

""We’re going to pay full real property taxes", he said. "We’re not doing a TIF."

The proposed investment would come on top of the $7 billion, two-year statewide investment Google announced in May 2025 at the groundbreaking for its Cedar Rapids data center. That announcement more than doubled the company’s previous $6.8 billion investment in Iowa since 2007.

Construction employment could reach about 2,500 workers at its peak, officials said, followed by about 180 permanent operational jobs.

"Data centers take a village – a village to build, a village to operate, and a village to steward them the right way", said Trent Fellers, public affairs manager for Google’s data centers in Nebraska and Iowa.

"The majority of these jobs do not require a four-year degree", added Tieg Weathers, site operations lead at the Cedar Rapids data center.

Weathers said the work would require employees to be at the facility.

"We have to actually touch the servers", he said. "It’s not remote work."

Google officials also pledged to cover infrastructure improvements needed for the development and its power needs.

"We don’t pass the costs on for our growth to the local households", Mr. Fellers said.

A six-building campus near the Cedar River

The development, codenamed "Project Meridian" during early discussions, would occupy a trapezoid-shaped 557-acre site southeast of Power Plant Road and Palo Marsh Road, just northeast of Palo. Another 100 agricultural acres to the south would provide the contiguity needed for voluntary annexation into the city.

An early October letter to residents described a 545-acre proposal. At the open house, it remained unclear whether Google had purchased either parcel.

Plans call for six single-story data center buildings, each measuring 280,000 to 300,000 square feet and standing about 40 feet tall. Each building would have its own electrical substation. An office building and on-site water treatment facility are also planned.

The property lies west of the Cedar River, east of Alliant Energy’s 200-megawatt Pleasant Creek Solar project and south of the Duane Arnold Energy Center.

Because the site lies in the Cedar River’s 100-year floodplain, facilities would be built at or above the record 2008 flood level. Officials have said most development would occur outside the 100-year floodplain and could not contribute to any rise in river levels.

Construction would require about 3 million cubic yards of fill. Each data center building would take about 18 to 24 months to construct, with work starting in the northeast portion of the property and moving southward and westward.

Water and electricity questions remain

Google identified the Cedar River and its associated alluvium as the primary water source for cooling. Officials said the campus would not draw cooling water from deep aquifers such as the Silurian or Jordan.

The company’s analysis put the river’s average flow in the area at about 3,030 cubic feet per second. Officials said the facility would use "less than 1%" of that flow, but did not provide a projected water-use volume.

Cooling water would circulate four to eight times through an evaporative tower. Google would own and operate both a water treatment plant and a wastewater plant, discharging treated water into the river under Iowa DNR permits and sending concentrated waste to an industrial treatment facility.

Officials said evaporative cooling uses about 10% less energy than a closed-loop system. Murray said Google would pay for water and sewer extensions and other city upgrades required by the project.

Electricity would come primarily from the neighboring Duane Arnold Energy Center, a 615-megawatt nuclear plant that NextEra Energy Resources is pursuing for restart. Google has a 25-year power purchase agreement for the majority of the plant’s output. That agreement was previously announced in connection with the Cedar Rapids data center complex, which remains under construction.

Grid service would be provided through the Central Iowa Power Cooperative (CIPCO) and Corridor Energy Cooperative.

Allen Gleckner, who works with Google’s Upper Midwest energy team, said the campus’s electricity consumption "will not raise (the) electric bill" for residential customers in the area.

"We pay for 100% of the power we use and directly fund the grid infrastructure that we require", Mr. Gleckner said.

After the meeting, Google community and workforce development senior manager Allyson Eastman told reporters Duane Arnold would be "the main source of our energy, not the only one."

Asked what would happen if the nuclear plant did not restart, she responded, "I don’t know the answer to that."

Google did not disclose the campus’s expected electricity consumption.

Noise, lighting and construction traffic

Officials said noise affecting neighboring homeowners would average 55 dBA, which they compared with a normal conversation or an electric toothbrush.

Dr. Christopher Ollson, an independent environmental health consultant, acknowledged that noise is substantially greater near data center buildings.

"Data centers can be noisy", he said.

He pointed to improperly sited facilities elsewhere in the United States, including some within 150 feet of residential backyards, "and they are noisy like you wouldn’t believe."

He described Palo’s sound ordinance as "very restrictive", and said Google spends "literally tens of millions" on noise mitigation.

Murray said the facility would use "Ultra-quiet" fans.

Construction noise is not covered by Palo’s ordinance, Mr. Olsson acknowledged. "Construction is construction", he said. He added that the loudest work would likely be confined to daytime hours.

Emergency backup generators would likely run about 10 hours a year for testing. They would use renewable hydrotreated vegetable oil or ultra-low-sulfur diesel to meet Linn County Public Health air quality standards.

Asked whether Google could promise fish and wildlife would not be affected, Ollson said, "I think the easy answer to that is yes."

Weathers said lighting would follow a photometric plan using downward-facing, shielded fixtures.

Google is also preparing a comprehensive traffic study with Palo, Linn County and the Iowa Department of Transportation. Expected changes include traffic signals and turn lanes at Power Plant and Palo Marsh roads and at Palo Marsh and Blairs Ferry roads.

Additional turn lanes are planned for a north driveway on Palo Marsh Road and the intersection of a newly constructed Comp Road and Palo Marsh Road, which would serve as the construction entrance.

Construction vehicles would stage north of the site to avoid downtown Palo. Murray said Google is committed to addressing road wear during and after construction.

Annexation decision remains a point of dispute

The proposed site is currently in unincorporated Linn County. Google initially negotiated with the county, but on Feb. 26 - the day county staff said the board was willing to formally accept the company’s economic terms - Google said it would instead seek annexation into Palo.

Google told the county it was "focusing on the annexation process with the City of Palo" because it believed that route "best prioritizes our long-term investment and the region’s economic benefits."

Linn County Supervisor Kirsten Running-Marquardt said she believed Google was seeking to avoid the county’s restrictive data center zoning ordinance, approved in February.

"Google has decided to bypass the protections that we put in place in our ordinance for the residents, for our water, for their protection and noise pollution, light or otherwise, and work with Palo to annex the land and move the data centers forward under Palo’s jurisdiction", Ms. Running-Marquardt said.

Ben Townsend, Google’s global head of infrastructure strategy and sustainability, disputed that characterization. Townsend, who said he was "boots on the ground" for some negotiations, said the decision involved "working with jurisdictions that have a shared vision and some experience on large industrial-scale projects, and have the planning resources, the personnel in-house that can really come together and start to construct the foundational documents and the vision to get a project going forward."

"Palo simply felt more interested in helping to drive that", Mr. Townsend said.

He rejected the suggestion that Google was evading the county ordinance.

"At the end of the day, both the city of Palo and the county have tools to manage projects like this", he said.

Officials offered no further explanation for the shift at Thursday’s meeting.

City review and resident response

Palo must approve annexation and zone the property under its EU-1 exclusive-use district for data centers, which the city council approved in July.

The Planning and Zoning Commission is scheduled to review the proposal Nov. 9. City council consideration is expected in December, though it was not clear whether the project would appear at the Dec. 9 or Dec. 21 meeting.

Eastman said Google intends to establish a community-driven Community Advisory Council with 10-12 local members and one "Googler" facilitating discussions. The company also plans to hire a full-time local staffer by the end of the year and is developing partnerships with Kirkwood Community College, Junior Achievement and NewBoCo.

Several residents declined to discuss their views at the open house. Palo resident Erin Jacobson said the presentation reinforced her opposition.

"I am not in favor of the data center", Ms. Jacobson said. "That was my perspective coming into this. The information shared is basically all the information that we’ve already heard."

She also questioned how firmly the company’s plans could be relied upon.

"I don’t know if it can be believed at this point in time", she said. "I think Google can change their mind when they make their way into the community, if they’re annexed into Palo. So I don’t think that we have anything definitive or anything set in stone, from what I heard tonight."

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