A hyperscale construction project

To say construction is proceeding on a massive scale at the Vantage Data Centers Lighthouse Campus on Port Washington’s far north side would be an understatement.

“They’re called hyperscalers for a reason,” Port Mayor Ted Neitzke told a group of about 30 people as they embarked on a tour of the construction site last Wednesday.

“What you will see is incredible. You can go out there today, and next week it will be completely different.”

About 1,000 workers are on site each day now, and that number will increase to about 5,000 at its peak, Ramon Perez, Vantage’s environment, safety and health manager, said.

“AI isn’t building these things, human beings are,” he said. 

The site is bustling, with huge construction vehicles — dump trucks, front-end loaders and more — maneuvering around the 675-acre data center.

The buildings are anchored on concrete pads where augers drill deep holes into which a steel cages are lowered, then filled with concrete to support the structure.

Two of the four data center buildings are starting to take shape as steel is erected to form the frames. The steel pieces are assembled on the ground, then lifted and put in place with a crane.

Concrete work to enclose the building was expected to begin this week, Perez said, adding it will take about two months to complete that work on each structure.

About 20% of the length of one building, which will ultimately be 560,000 square feet, has been constructed, and a second building, this one to be 725,000 square feet, is also underway.

Two of the buildings will be about 1,800-by-400 feet, Mark Freeman, Vantage’s vice president for global marketing said, and the other two will be slightly smaller. For comparison, he noted, that is about the length of the Empire State Building and the width of a football field.

The buildings are one story, about 27 feet tall if you include a parapet wall that extends above the roofline. 

The buildings are being constructed sequentially, Perez said, with work on each structure starting 30 to 45 days after the last.

The buildings should be weather tight by the end of the year, Freeman said.

The tour stopped at what Perez referred to as a lunch tent, a large multipurpose building with several food trucks and a truck selling work boots outside that can house 800 people. The building is home to multiple wash stations and food vendors as well as two health and wellness areas.

Giving workers somewhere to gather and break bread “gives you a better sense of community,” Perez said, noting, “We spend more time together than we do with our families.”

Workers start their day in two shifts with a “stretch and flex” program in the multipurpose lunch tent, Perez said, then are given a safety message before they head out to the site.

Perez said crews will build a helipad for medical transport in case of an emergency, adding three medical teams will be present at the site.

“You prepare for the worst, hope for the best,” he said. “From day one, you have to think of what’s next?”

The scale of the work is as large as the site. Perez noted that crews are laying 48.3 miles of water lines, adding, “We will use less water here with our closed loop system than the public schools in Port Washington use.”

And retention ponds on the site can hold more water than Random Lake, he said.

Kelli Johnson, Vantage senior sustainability specialist, also noted that Vantage is contributing $3 million to the Valley Creek project, which is intended to improve water quality and reduce downstream flooding — a project the company hopes will begin next year.                                                             

She also pointed out that the data center will be comprised of buildings built to LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, standards.

She said the goal is to have a 41% biodiversity net gain — a measure of how much the environment will be improved — when the project is completed in 2028, pointing out a large tree in the midst of the work site that will remain. She also noted that a large tree farm on the property will also be kept as is.

“We’re making sure we protect that,” Johnson said.

In the end, Neitzke said, “This will be a second city in Port Washington — this is a digital City of Port Washington.”