Data Centers and Twin Cities Real Estate: What Buyers Should Check Before an Offer

Everybody’s talking about data centers: where they’re going, where they should go and where they shouldn’t. Here’s how these huge projects are reshaping the suburbs where people are house hunting, plus five free checks to run before you buy near one.

Details are as of my video above (August 2026). For the background on Rosemount, Monticello and Becker, see billions in data centers coming to the Twin Cities.

They’re mostly not in Minneapolis

When people hear “Minneapolis data centers,” they picture downtown. Most of the big projects are south of the river in places like Rosemount, Farmington, Eagan and Apple Valley, or farther out in Greater Minnesota.

• Meta is building a roughly 715,000-square-foot campus in Rosemount, a project worth almost $800 million.
• A planned park in Farmington could hold up to 12 buildings.
• Google signed a deal for a site in Pine Island near Rochester and is behind a large project near Duluth.
• There’s also activity in Becker and Cannon Falls.
• Xcel Energy says data centers will drive a major share of new power demand.

That quiet field next to a house you like might be farmland today and a data center campus in a few years. The listing won’t tell you.

Pauses and lawsuits

City council meetings are packed. Eagan was one of the first Minnesota cities to pause new large data center projects, and Rosemount, Carver and Wright County did the same. Minneapolis paused larger projects for six months. A pause puts projects on hold while the city writes new rules; a project can still be built later.

In court:

• In Pine Island, a judge stopped work on the Google project after an environmental group argued the review moved too fast.
• In Farmington, the city approved its project, but residents and a neighboring township sued, and a judge refused to dismiss the case.

The buyer trap: you see “approved” and assume it’s settled. An approved project can sit in court for years, and if you check the approval but not the court case, you only see half the picture.

Why the suburbs?

A large campus can need 200 to 500 acres, which doesn’t exist in the city or first-ring suburbs. Developers also want big power lines, water for cooling, and cold winters, which cut cooling costs. That’s why Dakota County is at the center. Some sites had other uses before: part of the Farmington site was a golf course, and some was farmland people assumed would stay that way. Don’t assume farmland will always stay farmland; cities change their plans as areas grow.

Could one land in my neighborhood? For the most part, no. A giant campus won’t fit in established Minneapolis or Saint Paul neighborhoods, though one old downtown office building did become a smaller data center. An established neighborhood carries less risk; a home near open farmland and big power lines carries more.

Your power bill

Xcel asked for a rate increase of about 13% over two years. State regulators approved much less, closer to 3% a year. The rate case cited new power lines, cleaner energy and system upgrades, so data centers are part of the story, not all of it. Regulators also put a new rule in place: very large power users like data centers must cover their own costs, sign long contracts and pay a big penalty if they leave early. The final written order was still pending when I made the video.

Water and wells

Water can be the bigger risk, especially on a private well. With older cooling systems, much of the water evaporates. In Farmington, court papers said the data center could more than double the city’s daily water use. Newer systems can use far less; Google said its Duluth-area site would use much less than some older ones. If you’re on a well, a big water user nearby may draw from the same aquifer. Ask two questions:

1. What cooling system does the project plan to use?
2. Has it filed for a state water permit?

More on wells in septic, radon and wells.

Do data centers hurt home values?

The best research so far says not on average. A large George Mason University study of home sales near data centers in northern Virginia, home to the country’s biggest concentration of them, found no evidence that nearby data centers lowered values, and homes closer to them even sold for a bit more.

Don’t take that too far. Northern Virginia buyers have known what to expect for decades; here it’s new. The study looked at averages and can’t predict what happens to one house next to a project. A home a mile from a finished campus may do fine, even benefiting from jobs and property tax revenue. A home 200 feet from a giant cooling system may deal with noise, lights and a blocked view. Distance is the key, and there’s no Minnesota sales data yet because the big campuses aren’t finished.

Five free checks before you make an offer

Developers can talk with a city for a year or more before anything is public. Most of this homework is free and takes about 30 minutes:

1. Check the city’s future land use map. A field zoned for farming today may already be marked for industrial use.
2. Call the planning department and ask whether there are any data center applications near the address.
3. Check county property records. A big nearby parcel sold to an LLC with a random name is worth a closer look.
4. Check for a moratorium: whether one is active, when it ends and what it covers.
5. Search the state’s environmental review notices for large reviews filed near the parcel.

No agent can promise a data center will never show up nearby, and anyone who does is pulling your leg. A good agent can help you find what’s known today. Have a specific home in mind? Send it to our team and we’ll point you to the right records. Also see hidden things to check before you buy.