Data center developer eyes disused newpaper printing plant

As newspapers transition to digital platforms, the structures that once housed their printing presses are becoming available for new purposes. The Minnesota Star Tribune recently sold the vacant printing plant adjacent to Minneapolis to property developer Legacy Investing, who have plans to repurpose the facility as a data center.

This strategy is the second undertaken by Legacy, following a similar move in downtown Minneapolis where they converted a building into a data center for artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Utilizing these existing structures, which are already linked to power supply, presents an appealing proposition for developers, particularly as some grid operators warn of potential power outages for new-build data centers during periods of energy scarcity.

Legacy's approach emphasizes a small-scale strategy, contrasting with the large-scale data centers constructed by major technology firms, which cover the size of small towns and consume significant amounts of water and hundreds of megawatts of power. The capacity of Legacy's data center at the Star Tribune site is projected to be around 20 MW, while their Minneapolis building hosts approximately 30 MW of data center equipment.

This modest approach could prove to be an attractive proposition for data center operators in the future.