Microsoft has filed site plans with the village of Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin for two data center campuses holding 15 buildings between them, on land the company bought in 2024. WPR reports the two campuses are worth more than $13 billion and that BizTimes broke the plans first, with a Microsoft spokesperson confirming the proposed expansion.
"These preliminary plans are the next step in our yearslong development process and we look forward to sharing more about our specific plans as we go forward," the spokesperson said in an email. The operational detail behind that sentence is in the planning documents, and it is more specific than the statement.
The larger campus, on Durand Avenue, covers a 791-acre parcel and 5.2 million square feet of development in its initial phase. It holds nine data centers plus a 96,000-square-foot office and related buildings, with a taxable value put at more than $7.97 billion.
A second campus on International Drive takes around 530 acres and more than 3.5 million square feet, with six data centers, a 74,000-square-foot office and other buildings, at a taxable value of more than $5.3 billion. Both sit inside tax increment financing districts, and both are additions to the more than $7 billion Microsoft already has going into two projects in the same village, alongside a further campus planned for Kenosha.
Village revenue is the reason the numbers matter locally. Once district debts are paid, WPR reports the Durand Avenue site would generate around $45 million a year for the village and International Drive around $30 million. The fiscal analysis filed for each campus carries the same finding, that the project as presented "would likely still contribute far more tax revenue than require in adjacent public infrastructure liability and public service costs to the village."
Approval is not unconditional. The planning commission has recommended the plans subject to conditions that include a traffic impact analysis, since each campus is expected to draw 1,000 or more vehicles a day, and compliance with all local and state rules on water use. Engineering plans and then building permit applications would follow approval, and a village spokesperson said Microsoft has given no anticipated timeline for those submittals while the review is open.
Power is the open question a buyer would ask first, and it does not yet have an answer on file. A Microsoft spokesperson said an estimate of energy use for the proposed data centers was unavailable. Brad Smith, Microsoft's president and vice chair, told WPR he supports regulating data centers and backs a We Energies proposal for a "Very Large Customer" rate covering data centers in the state. "We want to pay a higher price so that our data center does not increase the price of electricity for consumers," Smith said.
Water has a published figure. Microsoft has previously stated its Mount Pleasant data centers would use up to 8.4 million gallons annually at full buildout, and a spokesperson confirmed the company expects the expansion to fall inside that number. Should it not, the company would need additional approval from local authorities.
For buyers tracking where Midwest capacity is actually landing, this is 1,300 acres of hyperscale supply that has cleared a commission recommendation but not yet an energy estimate or a construction schedule. Engineers sizing interconnection or water permits nearby should read the conditions attached to the recommendation, because traffic study and state water compliance are what stand between these site plans and a building permit.
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