Meta (Facebook) Data Center (Hwy 50 & Capehart)

[Brad]

Rumor has it that FB wants to build a tunnel under hwy 50 to connect both parcels into a very large data center.

It's literally in the link of the first post of this thread. From 2016.

Drove by tonight. They are building a bridge over Highway 50, not a tunnel.

[skinzfan23]

Yeah I saw that last weekend as well.

[ita]

Facebook data center to expand in Papillion

Facebook's data center campus in Papillion continues to grow.

The social media giant on Wednesday announced the second expansion of the project that is still under construction.

Facebook said the campus at the intersection of Capehart Road and Nebraska 50 will grow by about 1 million square feet, which will put it at nearly 3.6 million square feet once it's complete. The expansion will cost approximately $400 million and add around 100 permanent jobs to the site, bringing total permanent employment to around 300 people.

[WBR_Tom]

Because the expansion is across Capehart Road to the south of the existing campus, it will now be part of two municipalities (Papillion and Springfield). They've changed the name to "Sarpy Data Center" accordingly.

Some stats from the press release:

This expansion will bring an additional $400 million in capital investment to Sarpy County as well as 100 new operational jobs. We will maintain hundreds of construction workers on-site for years to come. This brings our total investment in Nebraska to nearly $1.5 billion and supports more than 300 total data center jobs. At the peak of construction, we will have more than 2,000 construction workers on site. When construction is complete, the data center will be 3.6 million square feet in total.



3.6 million square feet. It's hard to fathom a structure that enormous.

[Omaha Cowboy]

Another feather on the cap for the Omaha metro ...

Ciao..LiO...Peace

[GetUrban]

Wow, that’s quite the collection of server farms. Does anyone know what the big flat gravel-covered area is just to the upper left of the closer building complex is? Maybe some kind of drainage collection area? Next to the mini power plant.

[Bomaha]

Wow, that’s quite the collection of server farms. Does anyone know what the big flat gravel-covered area is just to the upper left of the closer building complex is? Maybe some kind of drainage collection area? Next to the mini power plant.

I assume that actually might be the massive substation for the central and southern buildings. The other substation in the North may be just the original one.

This would be kind of like the Google DC in Council Bluffs. There was a smaller original substation until the master plan of the site when the massive one was constructed.

[OmahaFan]

So we now have 2 Mega Data centers in the region 1 in Iowa which is Google which is also expanding further and then the Facebook Data center. Loving it

[Original]

Would prefer if these were AWS or Azure DCs, as I feel those have a greater chance of longer life than Facebook, which I would not bet a ton of money on being at the same scale or needing these DCs in 15 years.

[nebugeater]

Would prefer if these were AWS or Azure DCs, as I feel those have a greater chance of longer life than Facebook, which I would not bet a ton of money on being at the same scale or needing these DCs in 15 years.

ISn't FB doing a lot more with the Data centers than FB and their other social media platforms. I thought they were leasing DC space to others like Google.

[HskrFanMike]

The electronics in these data centers only have a shelf life of about five years, maximum... so in 15 years, the only thing being installed today that will still exist will be the wiring and HVAC/fire suppression systems. If Facebook fades away or gets replaced by something else more cool, someone else will take over these spaces.

[Original]

Would prefer if these were AWS or Azure DCs, as I feel those have a greater chance of longer life than Facebook, which I would not bet a ton of money on being at the same scale or needing these DCs in 15 years.

ISn't FB doing a lot more with the Data centers than FB and their other social media platforms. I thought they were leasing DC space to others like Google.

I understand Facebook is actually leasing from others far more than they are leasing to others, ( https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/col ... nyone-2020 ) and I really would not expect them to be leasing out too much of their newly constructed space to others at this point. Companies like Facebook have developed enough infra that their workloads are relatively portable (relatively, at Facebook's scale, it's not like they can just flip a switch to move everything to a different DC in a couple ms) and so I can't see them making this huge capital investment and then lease it out to others. Don't forget also that they have Oculus and other VR/AR platforms that will probably be pushing for greater adoption in the next 3-5 years, I can't imagine they would want to have leases to others clogging their pipelines. I'd guess if they are leasing DC space, it's older space on older machines that they are trying to squeeze a few more pennies out of, not actually be a profit center.

Still don't think personally that Facebook will be what it is in 15 years, but I wouldn't have guessed 15 years ago that Epic would be a household name with Fortnite, or that Microsoft would have transitioned as completely to a services company, so take anything I say with a grain of salt.

I also think that I wouldn't be surprised if a Facebook datacenter is mostly empty in 15 years, as I worry that there is massive overbuilding going on relying on local electricity prices being near certain rates, and that it would be very easy for some politician one side of the river or the other with a deep understanding of what is going on with data center placement to do some tax shenanigans that would play well electorally and mean that the cost of running a DC increases 12% and then there goes Facebook et all.

[Coyote]

Facebook slated to expand Sarpy Data Center for second time

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, once again is slated to expand its data center in Sarpy County. Officials on Thursday announced plans for a ninth building at the data center's campus along Nebraska Highway 50. The new building means the campus will have 4 million square feet of space.

The social media group first broke ground in 2017 and opened the data center in 2019. The facility expanded in 2021, crossing into Springfield, and prompting a name change from the Papillion Data Center to the Sarpy Data Center. The data center has more than 150 employees, said Matt Sexton, community development regional manager. Once construction is complete, it should at least double the number of employees working from the facility, he said. Preliminary work already is underway on the project, Sexton said. Construction is expected to wrap up in 2024. Officials said in a press release that the facility will continue to be supported by 100% renewable energy, made possible by investments in wind energy. That's thanks in part to a wind farm in Dixon County in northeast Nebraska.



Meta, Facebook's parent company, on Thursday announced plans for a ninth building at its Sarpy Data Center campus along Nebraska Highway 50.

[Coyote]

Facebook parent company, Meta, continues growth in Nebraska’s Sarpy County
When ninth building is done, investment would exceed $1.5 billion, says spokesman

The Sarpy County campus of social media giant Meta has been on continuous growth since it broke ground five years ago on two buildings in Papillion. What started as 1 million square feet of data center has expanded to the point that construction crossed into another city — requiring a more inclusive name change. A highway overpass was even built earlier to connect parts of the spreading complex.

4 million square feet

On Thursday, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other apps announced yet another expansion plan to add a ninth structure in Sarpy County. That will increase the facility’s sprawl to beyond 4 million square feet of data center space in Papillion and Springfield. “This has continued largely unabated since 2017,” said Matt Sexton, the company’s community development manager. “It’s Meta’s only data center in the world that includes two municipalities.” Collectively, he said, the total investment into the “Sarpy Data Center” is expected to exceed $1.5 billion. Currently, more than 150 full-time employees work among the six operational buildings that all are in Papillion, Sexton said. When the three Springfield structures are fully constructed and operational (including the most recent one announced), that employee count is expected to double, he said.

Worldwide reach

Sexton said that doesn’t include construction and skilled trades workers who will have work through 2024. At peak construction, Sexton said, about 2,000 construction workers, many local, were at the site. Sexton describes the Sarpy Data Center as the “physical backbone and infrastructure that powers our apps and services worldwide.” He said that at some point, users of the apps likely interface with the Sarpy servers and computers that are used to transmit and store data globally. An announcement shared on the Sarpy Data Center Facebook page said that since 2017, Meta has moved over 3 million cubic yards of dirt and erected more than 6,000 tons of steel.

[Brad]

A question came up in another thread about Data Center Property Taxes. Here is a quick chart I made of the Sarpy County Data Centers and the $7.2 Million they pay in Property Taxes.

Screenshot 2026-07-14 210455.jpg

[OverlookedFarm]

Those valuations are laughable. To be honest.

I can't fix a driveway crack or paint a shed without falling up from "Fair" to "EGGCELLENT" category and getting clubbed with a corresponding increase.

[Brad]

I have no clue what the value should be, but just remember the value is only the land and the building shell. Any equipment inside is not included in the value. Also does not include any OPPD Infrastructure on site.