West Des Moines October Building Permits Near $85M

WEST DES MOINES, IA — The tax value of construction projects that were issued building permits in West Des Moines in October exceeded any month this year and accounted for about 40 percent of permit values to date in 2017. One new construction project — a building in the final phase of the Microsoft "Project Mountain" data center at 8855 Grand Ave. in Dallas County — accounted for $69.1 million of the monthly total of $84.58 million in projects issued permits.

Microsoft has three data center projects underway in West Des Moines. Project Mountain is the original data center site announced in 2008 and has been built in four phases. The company's second site, dubbed Alluvion, is located in Polk County and work is ongoing on the eighth and final phase planned there. Microsoft announced the third West Des Moines project — Osmium — in mid-2016, saying that the location in Madison and Warren counties will be its biggest yet and will carry a total taxable value of as much as $2.5 billion when completed. The company announced a delay in construction there a year ago, citing timing of ongoing work at its first two data centers.

A total of 91 permits for residential and commercial construction projects were issued by West Des Moines in October. According to the monthly building permit report, which was released today, commercial projects accounted for $73.5 million in valuation while residential construction permits totaled $10.3 million.

The report also broke down the value of projects by county, showing:

• $3.5 million for Polk County commercial projects
• $70.1 million for Dallas County commercial projects
• $5.7 million for Polk County residential construction
• $4.6 million for Dallas County residential construction
• $615,000 for one tax-exempt project, Maple Grove United Methodist Church.

The high valuation in October's permits directly followed the previous monthly high for 2017 when 78 permits issued in September totaled nearly $38.9 million.

In the first nine months of the year, West Des Moines had issued permits for property valuation of $197.8 million. With the latest monthly figures, the city's building permits issued to date in 2017 exceed $282.4 million.

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