A Common Sense Institute review suggests currently operating and proposed data centers in Iowa would generate over three billion dollars in property taxes by 2040. Ben Murrey is director of policy and research for the think tank. He says data center owners and operators have spent or plan to invest 53 billion dollars in Iowa buildings and equipment by 2031.
Murrey says, as for the megawatts or overall capacity of data centers based on population, Iowa ranks second in the 12-state Midwest region.
Murrey says, about 12 million people live in Ohio. Iowa’s population is over three million. If all the data centers proposed in Iowa are built, the Common Sense Institute’s economic models suggest that within five years, nearly 30-thousand Iowa jobs would be directly or indirectly linked to data centers.
Murrey says, for example, pay for security guards at data centers is about 12 percent higher. Murrey also found Iowa data centers paid over 56 million dollars in property taxes last year. Data centers are primarily built on agland and Murrey calculates an acre of land used for a data center generates 153 times more in property taxes than it did in its previous use for farming.
