QTS Cedar Rapids data center, Fairfax, Iowa

QTS is building its first Iowa data center campus on about 612 acres in the Big Cedar Industrial Park in Fairfax, in Linn County just outside Cedar Rapids. The project has seven single-story buildings, described as the largest in QTS's portfolio, and will use about 1.05 gigawatts of electricity, roughly what 800,000 homes use. The Gazette put initial construction investment at more than $750 million, with buildings ranging from 400,000 to 1.1 million square feet, phase one targeted for 2026 and phase two about a year later. A separate industry report, from ABI Research, describes the full build-out as a $10 billion campus, calling it the state's largest investment ever. QTS declined to say who will use its Cedar Rapids facility. Cedar Rapids Mayor Tiffany O'Donnell said, "When you talk about bang for the buck, it makes a lot of sense for us to be bringing in a company like this." QTS's own estimate puts construction employment at about 11,000 jobs, and the company has committed $18 million through a community betterment agreement. The city expects about $20 million a year in property tax revenue at first, rising to roughly $55 million once incentives expire.

Linn County adopted new data center zoning rules in 2026, after a first public reading that February, requiring water studies, water-use agreements with the county, 1,000-foot setbacks from residential zones, payments into a community betterment fund, and limits on noise and light pollution. County planning director Charlie Nichols said, "These are generational uses with generational infrastructure impacts, and treating them as a normal warehouse or normal commercial user is just not working." Dorothy Landt, a resident of Palo, asked supervisors for a full moratorium: "Why has Linn County, Iowa, become a dumping ground for soon-to-be obsolete technology that spoils our landscape and robs us of our resources?" In June 2026, county supervisors went further and imposed an 18-month moratorium on new data center projects, running to January 2028, to study the cumulative effect of the projects already approved.