Nov. 2012
Smaller data centers were already here
The Cedar Rapids area had smaller commercial data-center infrastructure before the current wave of large projects. Enseva's facility in Hiawatha, a suburb of Cedar Rapids, opened in November 2012, offering colocation, network access, and private cloud services.
Source: Enseva Hiawatha
Mar. 21, 2024
Google is named in Cedar Rapids
Cedar Rapids publicly identified Google as the company behind a proposed data center project tied to a development agreement and a state incentives application. City officials said the project involved a minimum investment of $576 million for one or more data centers.
Jan. 28, 2025
A second major player enters Cedar Rapids
Cedar Rapids City Council approved a development agreement with QTS (Quality Technology Services), a national data center operator, bringing a second large-scale campus to Big Cedar Industrial Center, an industrial development area in southwest Cedar Rapids. With a planned investment of more than $750 million, the QTS campus occupies 612 acres of the Big Cedar Industrial Center, adjacent to Google's site — what city officials called the largest economic investment in Cedar Rapids history.
Source: Corridor Business Journal
May 29, 2025
Google scales up its Iowa ambitions
Google said it would invest an additional $7 billion in Iowa over the next two years in cloud and AI infrastructure. The announcement reflected both a new data center in Cedar Rapids and expansion of its existing facility in Council Bluffs.
Source: Google Blog
Jan. 14, 2026
Power demand shapes the energy picture
Linn County supervisors approved rezoning for NextEra Energy's proposed restart of the Duane Arnold Energy Center, a shuttered nuclear plant near the small city of Palo, northwest of Cedar Rapids. The decision marked the county's first formal step toward meeting data center power demand. In a separate agreement, NextEra committed to supply Google with a majority of the plant's output if the restart moved forward.
Source: Iowa Public Radio
Feb. 2026
Linn County writes new rules
Linn County approved an ordinance creating new zoning rules for data centers in unincorporated areas (land outside city limits where the county has direct zoning authority). For large projects, the county required a water study, a Water Use Agreement, and an Economic Development Agreement, along with rules covering setbacks, noise, traffic, and emergency planning.
Source: Linn County
Mar. 4, 2026
Google shifts toward Palo
Linn County officials announced that Google had decided to pursue data center development in Palo — a small city northwest of Cedar Rapids near the Duane Arnold site — by seeking to have the land incorporated into Palo's city boundaries, a move the city said it did not solicit but agreed to consider. By building within a city, Google would no longer be bound by the county's new ordinance.
Source: Iowa Public Radio
Mar. 4, 2026 (continued)
Water becomes the central fight
The county's ordinance would have required a water availability study, an assessment of whether the Cedar River could sustain the proposed draw, — and binding agreements on water use. County Chair Kirsten Running-Marquardt said Google had previously told her the data center buildings would use roughly 12 million gallons of water per day. By moving to Palo, those requirements no longer applied.
Source: Iowa Public Radio
July 1, 2026
The county pauses new development
Linn County approved an 18-month moratorium on new applications to rezone property for large-scale data centers in unincorporated areas, passing 2-1 after three hours of public comment. The vote does not affect projects already underway in Cedar Rapids or Palo, which fall under city jurisdiction. Supervisor Sami Scheetz, who voted against it, argued the moratorium would push future development toward cities with fewer protections. The moratorium runs through Jan. 1, 2028.
Sources: Linn County; Corridor Business Journal
July 1, 2026 (continued)
A gas plant and open questions
The moratorium vote came the same day regional utility Alliant Energy confirmed plans to power the Cedar Rapids data centers with a proposed 720-megawatt natural gas plant in Morgan Valley, a rural area in western Linn County, adding air quality concerns and higher electricity costs for ordinary customers to a debate that had centered on water and land use. The moratorium is a pause, not a resolution. The underlying questions about water use, energy infrastructure, regulatory authority, and the pace of development remain open.
Source: Corridor Business Journal
Schematic map. Locations are approximate editorial anchors.