Sacramento Valley Union Labor Bulletin

Owned and Published by the Sacramento Central Labor Council and the Sacramento-Sierra’s Building & Construction Trades Council, official councils of the AFL-CIO

Prime Data Centers, an international company with data centers throughout California, is expanding its operations at McClellan Park and has signed a PLA with the Building Trades for the work. - Courtesy of Prime Data Centers
LABOR BULLETINSLIDER

Building Trades sign PLA for new data center

Labor Bulletin

By Sheri Williams

The Sacramento-Sierra’s Building and Construction Trades Council, on behalf of 19 trade unions, has signed a Project Labor Agreement for a new data center in the Sacramento Region.

The shovel-ready project includes a two-story data center, a two-story administration building and a one-story generator building, totaling approximately 150,000 square feet inside the McClellan Park business community, which is a former Air Force base.

“This new project is one of many that is keeping our union workforce busy in the Sacramento region,” said SSBCTC executive director Kevin Ferreira, who was instrumental in closing the deal. “With advanced technology projects such as this one, developers understand that the expertise and knowledge of union builders is critical to delivering high-quality work on time and on budget.”

The primary employer on the project is Clune Construction, a Delaware company, building on behalf of Prime Data Centers. Prime Data Centers already owns and operates one large facility near the new site, and is expanding to a second facility as the artificial intelligence boom drives increasing need for low-cost, high-tech power centers. A spokesman for the company said that Sacramento was chosen for its lower costs and easier access to land.

“With our first building at McClellan Park fully occupied, and demand for capacity growing every day, Prime Data Centers is doubling-down in the region with this new state-of-the-art facility,” said Jeff Barber, Prime’s EVP of sales and marketing, to media last year. “We see the Bay Area becoming more power-constrained and consider Sacramento the perfect alternative, complete with an ample supply of power and significantly lower pricing. The geographic profile is amongst the safest in the nation without significant latency typically associated with data replication.”

The company said in a release last year that its existing Building-1 on the McClellan Park campus is fully leased. It said that Building-2, covered by the new PLA, will be located adjacent to the existing building, and will provide up to 16MW of capacity and cover about 150,000 square feet.

“We are pleased to address strong customer demand with expanded capacity at our Sacramento data center campus in McClellan Park,” said Nicholas Laag, Founder and CEO of Prime Data Centers, in a press release announcing the project. “Prime’s second Sacramento data center will be developed with a focus on sustainability as well as providing AI-ready digital infrastructure for today’s hyperscale and enterprise organizations.”

Prime opened it original McClellan Park facility in 2020, and announced plans for a second one in 2021. The company is based in Dallas, and has data centers around the world.

The project is estimated to cost around $150 million, according to media, and is already in the works. The company announced that it may also pursue a third building at the site in coming months.