Switch looks to build new data centers in Las Vegas Valley

After buying hundreds of acres in Apex Industrial Park, Switch is looking to build new data centers on a swath of its holdings.

Switch has filed plans with the city of North Las Vegas to develop a 486,250-square-foot complex on roughly 176 acres in the remote industrial park, according to city records obtained through a public-records request.

The project consists of two data-center buildings, a substation, a logistics office building and other components, according to a letter of intent that Switch sent to city officials last month.

As seen in the letter, the company is calling its project the Switch Core 2.0 Phase 1 Campus.

North Las Vegas spokeswoman Kathleen Richards said last week that the proposal had not yet been scheduled for a Planning Commission or City Council meeting.

Las Vegas-based Switch did not provide a comment for this story.

Data centers are basically warehouses filled with computer servers and other gear needed to store clients’ data. Locally, the industry is all but synonymous with Switch, a homegrown company founded by Rob Roy with a cluster of several big facilities in the southwest Las Vegas Valley area.

Switch has data centers in other parts of the country as well, and lately, it has been stockpiling land and funding amid a national data-center construction boom, fueled in no small part by the rapid expansion of, and heavy investments in, artificial-intelligence systems.

Since late last year, Switch purchased roughly 546 acres in Southern Nevada for about $463 million combined through several transactions, property records show.

Most of this was in Apex, a mostly empty industrial park in the desert some 25 miles northeast of the Las Vegas Strip.

Switch has snapped up nearly 493 acres in Apex for $376.5 million, property records show.

Overall, the company has gobbled up land and borrowed billions of dollars over the past few years, laying the foundation for new data centers amid a rapid industry increase that has rankled communities nationwide.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.