Microsoft is continuing to expand its holdings of undeveloped Mount Pleasant land, now purchasing 53 acres for nearly more than $14 million.
The software developer bought the 53 acres at 12804 Louis Sorenson Road from Dave P. and Gloria A. Zenner Trust for $14,318,532, according to state records. The property has an assessed value of $189,000, according to Racine County records.
The land contributes to a site Microsoft has been amassing this year north of the properties that the company has already announced plans for. The company has not released plans for this area and has not responded to requests for comment on the land acquisitions.
When combined with the 1,030 acres of land that Microsoft purchased from the Village of Mount Pleasant and a private land owner in December, as well as 315 acres that the company had already owned, Microsoft now owns a total of more than 1,900 acres in Mount Pleasant, which is about 9% of the village's total area.
[caption id="attachment_597962" align="aligncenter" width="1024"]
Microsoft's Racine County land holdings. Map made using Google My Maps[/caption]
Microsoft's confirmed plans
Earlier this year, Microsoft unveiled plans to build
a $3.3 billion artificial intelligence data center in Mount Pleasant.
This followed an announcement made in March of 2023, when Microsoft announced plans to build a $1 billion data center on a 315-acre site, which was part of the Foxconn development area in Mount Pleasant. Microsoft is currently under construction on about 2.4 million square feet of data center space on this site.
Foxconn relinquished its development rights for the site in order for it to be sold by the village to Microsoft, for $50 million. Microsoft said it expected to have 200 employees in the first phase of its Mount Pleasant data center development.
Then later in the year, Microsoft moved to significantly expand those plans. In November of 2023, after construction had already begun on the initial Microsoft data center, local officials announced that the company planned to purchase an additional 1,030 acres of land for the data center development.
Village and county officials said at the time that Microsoft planned to invest “billions” of dollars over the next decade on buildings, support structures, systems and equipment.
Last month,
Microsoft received initial approval from the Village of Mount Pleasant to begin mass grading on approximately 790 acres of that land, where it plans to build another 2 million square feet of data center space.
