Nobody should promise you that Casper is a data center market, and we will not. What the Casper area has is a short list of site-level advantages that matter to a small or edge facility: fiber going in near the airport, telecom franchises in the neighboring towns, a generating base on the North Platte, and plenty of land. Our job starts after you decide the site makes sense, and it covers the shell, the electrical and cooling plant, and the commissioning plan that proves the building works.
The fiber story is the most concrete. The Wyoming Business Council approved $617,483 in grant funding for Natrona County to install about 30,000 linear feet of fiber optic cable in and around the airport business park at 8500 Airport Parkway. The Town of Mills has entered into franchise agreements with several telecom providers to build and operate fiber networks. Neither fact makes a site viable by itself, but together they tell us where to start asking the carriers for route diversity and lead times.
Power is the question that decides everything. The Dave Johnston Power Plant, a large coal-fired generating station owned by PacifiCorp, is at Glenrock, but a plant in the county does not mean capacity at your meter. We help you get the utility's load study and interconnection timeline in front of you before you buy land. For the finished building itself, see the owner-side view on our data center page.
The airport district has the clearest case. Casper-Natrona County International Airport operates Foreign Trade Zone 157, with a 492 acre Magnet Site at the airport and a boundary covering nearly all of Natrona County, and it sits next to a business park with more than 35 tenants. Land there is large and flat, utilities are being extended, and a secure edge or enterprise facility would be a quiet neighbor.
The limits are real too. The population is small, the nearest large metro markets are a long drive away on I-25, and a boom-bust energy economy means demand for local compute can swing. We tell owners to build the first phase to fit what is committed and leave the power and cooling room to grow. That discipline is the difference between a facility that fills and one that sits half empty.
We test a parcel against four questions before we draw: where does the fiber enter, how many megawatts can the utility deliver and when, what does the soil and frost depth do to the foundation cost, and where will the cooling plant and generators sit. Casper lists climate zone 6B with a 3 foot frost line, and the cold months give the mechanical engineer free-cooling hours that a warmer market would not offer. The exact savings depend on the design, so we ask for the model, not a rule of thumb.
Backup power is its own project. Generators, fuel storage, switchgear and transfer equipment need foundations, containment and a permit path, and they have lead times that often exceed the shell. We order them early and build the pads and conduit to match. Security comes next: single controlled entry, fencing, lighting and camera conduit are far cheaper in the slab than as an afterthought.
Data center shells are mostly an exercise in coordination, and several of our other services carry the load. Site development and utilities brings in the duct banks, water and sewer. Long-lead procurement locks in switchgear, transformers and chillers while the building is still on paper.
At the other end, commissioning and closeout is where the building earns its reputation: integrated systems testing, load banks, controls verification and a documentation package the operator can run on. We carry these services under one roof so the handoffs between them are not your problem. Developers who plan to lease space to others will find the same crews work for commercial real estate developers.
The City of Casper lists the 2024 International Codes with amendments in Title 15 of its municipal code, and commercial permits there often require a life-safety plan, engineered building and site plan drawings and Planning/Zoning approval. Plan review covers structural calculations and engineering reports, so a data center package needs the mechanical, electrical and fire protection design well enough developed that the reviewer can see what is being built.
Wyoming has no single statewide code, and the Town of Mills, Bar Nunn and the county each enforce their own. If your parcel is north of town toward the North Casper I-25 corridor or in a neighboring town, we check the local building department before design starts and write the answer into the proposal. The state fire marshal also names the 2026 National Electrical Code, while other Wyoming sources still cite the 2023 edition, so we confirm the electrical edition with the authority having jurisdiction.
On a data center, the shell is rarely the critical path. Switchgear, generators and chillers set the date, and the utility's service extension may be the first thing that moves. We build a schedule that starts procurement and utility applications on day one, then works the building around those dates. Cold weather matters for slab and tilt or steel erection, but it matters more for commissioning, because cold-start testing is easier to plan than to rush.
Phasing is the other lever. We can deliver the shell and one hall now and leave room for the second, with underground conduit and structural allowances in place. If you want a phased delivery in a site that is already operating, our planning for a site in Mills or near the airport includes how the new work stays out of the live area.
Send the parcel, the megawatts you are targeting and the carriers you expect to use. We will return a construction scope, a procurement list for the long-lead equipment and a schedule built around utility and gear delivery.
It depends on the project. Fiber is being extended near the airport business park, and land and a generating base are available, but power capacity and carrier diversity must be confirmed with the utility and the carriers before you commit. We build once you have decided, and we can help you check the site against the construction side of the question.
The building is usually the shorter part. The long items are switchgear, generators and cooling equipment, plus the utility's service extension. We start those orders and applications on day one and work the shell around their delivery dates. A realistic schedule is set after we know the equipment list.
Yes. The City of Casper lists climate zone 6B and a 3 foot frost line, and we design foundations, rooftop equipment curbs and exterior piping for that. Cold weather also helps free cooling, but it requires controls that handle the swing between seasons.
It covers testing of the electrical, cooling and controls systems under load, usually with load banks, and a documented walk-through with the operator. We schedule it as its own phase with float, because deficiencies found there are cheaper to fix before the operator moves in.
We coordinate the application, but the owner's electrical engineer drives the load calculation. We keep the interconnection timeline on the master schedule so everyone sees how it affects the building.