About 30,000 linear feet of fiber optic cable is slated for the ground in and around the Casper airport business park, paid in part by a $617,483 grant that the Wyoming Business Council approved for Natrona County. Fiber is the first thing a data hall needs and the last thing most Wyoming sites have. When we talk to an owner about a data center here, we start at the conduit, not the cooling plant.
We will say what we do not know. Casper is not an established data center market, and we cannot give you a count of local projects or promise tenants. What we can offer is a straight read on what it takes to build a small to mid-size facility on high plains ground: cold outside air for much of the year, wide open land, rail and highway access, and a construction schedule set by electrical equipment that takes a long time to buy.
Our work on a data center is the shell, the site, the concrete, the structural frame and the coordination of power and cooling contractors. The owner usually brings the IT design and the operator. We bring the building discipline, the schedule discipline and an honest cost picture.
Power is the main constraint. The Dave Johnston Power Plant, a large coal-fired station owned by PacifiCorp, sits at Glenrock, east of Casper along the interstate, and Alcova's powerplant on the North Platte River has two 18 MW turbines that produce about 92,408,000 kWh a year. Those facts do not tell you what capacity a given site can draw, but they show that generation and transmission are part of the local landscape. The utility serving your parcel will decide what load it can deliver and when.
The Town of Mills has franchise agreements with several telecom providers to build fiber networks, and the airport business park fiber project adds more. Both support a small facility that needs diverse paths in and out. We help owners ask carriers where the lines run, how many routes reach the property and how long a lateral will take.
The realistic buyer here is often a small one. A healthcare system or a public agency that wants its own server building close to its operations has a very different brief from a hyperscale operator, and a different budget. We size our advice to the buyer in front of us, and we say early when a plan is bigger than the local grid and fiber can carry.
We begin with five questions. How much power can the utility deliver and by when? How many fiber routes reach the parcel? Is the ground free of flood, drainage and contamination issues? Is the land zoned for the use? And can trucks reach the loading area with generators, switchgear and chillers? Ground that fails any of those will cost more to fix than to avoid.
Land near the airport business park, with its Foreign Trade Zone 157 magnet site of 492 acres, gives room and nearby services. Our airport area page lays out what that district offers. We also look at the east side of the metro, where industrial land and highway access are close together.
A data hall needs a slab built for heavy rack loads and equipment pads, a roof that carries rooftop cooling, walls with the fire rating the design calls for, and generator and fuel yards with containment. The structure can be a metal building for a smaller facility or tilt-wall for a larger one, with the choice set by speed, security and budget.
Beyond the structure, we coordinate trenching for duct banks, grounding grids, the generator pad, fuel storage and a secure perimeter. Doors, vestibules and mantraps follow the owner's security plan. Everything inside the white space is the owner's design, but we sequence the building so equipment can be set as soon as the roof is on.
Early budgeting matters most. Our preconstruction estimating gives owners a range based on a power size, a rack count and a tier target before the design is final. That range keeps a project from running ahead of its funding.
The full delivery process is described on our data center construction page, and it leans on long-lead procurement. Switchgear, transformers and generators can take longer to buy than the building takes to erect, so the order dates, not the pour dates, often set the finish date.
The City of Casper lists the 2024 International Codes and sends amendments through Title 15 of its municipal code. State fire and electrical rules apply too, and the state fire marshal names the 2026 National Electrical Code while other state sources still cite the 2023 edition, so we confirm the edition with the department before we price electrical work. Because Wyoming has no single statewide building code and local governments enforce their own, we ask the local building department what it requires before we lock the design.
Commercial permits in the city often need a life-safety plan, engineered drawings and planning approval. Clean agent or pre-action fire suppression, battery rooms and fuel storage can bring added review. We start those conversations when we choose the site, not after the design is done.
If you have a megawatt target and a site in mind, send both. We will return a shell and site budget range with the long-lead items listed.
It has points in its favor: open land, highway and rail access, and fiber being added near the airport. It is not an established data center market, and we do not claim it is. The decision depends on your power supply, your fiber routes and your customers.
The building usually takes less time than the electrical equipment takes to arrive. Transformers, switchgear and generators drive the finish date, and we list their order dates first. We give a schedule that starts with those items.
Your engineers and operator do, or a design-build partner you pick. We coordinate their systems with the shell, the slab and the site. We also bring estimating early, so the design tracks the budget.
Cool outside air can reduce cooling energy for part of the year, and the design can take advantage of it. The same weather brings snow load, wind and freeze protection for outdoor equipment. We design the roof and equipment yards for both.
Four things: target power in megawatts, the rack count or density, the security level and the site. With those we can give a range. Without them, any number is a guess.