Microsoft has paused construction on some parts of its data center site underway in Mount Pleasant.
The tech giant earlier this year announced a $3.3 billion investment to build a data center on land once set aside for Foxconn in Racine County. The company bought thousands of acres in Mount Pleasant Tax Incremental District (TID) No. 5 for a data center facility, with goals to expand its national cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure capacity. The investment is expected to last through 2026.
However, last week both company and village of Mount Pleasant officials said that construction work was "paused" on some data center construction sites. It's unclear where the work has paused, but officials maintained the overall project will continue.
"We are refining our data center design," said a Microsoft spokesperson. "During this time, construction will pause on some of our sites. The redesigns do not reflect changes to our long-term plans," they added.
The company was "years ahead of schedule" for fulfilling financial commitments to Mount Pleasant under a development agreement, said Sean Ryan, the communications director for the village of Mount Pleasant.
Construction is underway at Areas 2 and 3 at the TID No. 5 site, with Area 3 split by a Canadian Pacific railroad line. The first phase of development at Area 3B is on track to start operations in 2025, Ryan said. Microsoft started construction on Area 3A and started earthwork in Area 2, he added.
"Village officials have no reason to believe this will affect the overall scope or nature of Microsoft's project," Ryan said in a statement. "We appreciate Microsoft being transparent with village leaders about the construction timeline for its Mount Pleasant data centers," he added.
Microsoft pledged to bring 2,300 union construction jobs to southeast Wisconsin by 2025. Other Microsoft data center projects are underway in Virginia, Arizona and North Carolina.
Contractors are building the Mount Pleasant data center campus on land previously set aside for Taiwan-based Foxconn. The original Foxconn project promised a $10 billion investment and 13,000 new jobs, but those plans were never fully realized.