Not every colocation facility is the same. This proposal is designed for Boone.

Alliant Energy is the electric provider for the proposed site. Alliant indicates the project could bring grid enhancements and increased reliability for all customers.

Large energy-use customers like Lightedge pay for the infrastructure upgrades needed to serve them. Those costs are not passed on to existing ratepayers. Alliant Energy is currently in a rate freeze through the end of the decade, in part because of increased demand and growth from large energy users like this project.

Project-specific infrastructure terms and the formal Boone review process will be confirmed as site selection and planning advance.

Lightedge uses a closed-loop, water-cooled system in its facilities. The same water is continuously recirculated to cool the equipment, eliminating the need for daily water usage for cooling.

Water use at the facility comes from ordinary needs like restrooms and break areas, plus lawn irrigation. BCEGC analyzed three years of actual water bills from Lightedge’s Altoona facility, which has been operating for decades, and found usage in line with other businesses in the community.

For comparison, the average family of four uses approximately 9,000–12,000 gallons per month, per the U.S. EPA. Only once in the past 12 months did monthly usage at the Altoona facility exceed what an average family of four uses in a month.

Source: three years of actual City of Altoona water bills, provided to BCEGC.

At the Altoona facility, the closed-loop system holds approximately 2,000–3,000 gallons. Because it is a closed loop, annual makeup water is less than 10 gallons, almost entirely from minor leaks and filter changes.

The active corrosion inhibitor is sodium nitrite; no glycol is used, and system pH is maintained between 8.5 and 11.

These Altoona system details should be confirmed against the final Boone design before construction.

The project is expected to create hundreds of construction jobs during development, along with a number of high-quality, permanent positions to operate the facility. Lightedge has a long history of hiring U.S. veterans across its organization.

Beyond jobs, the project keeps modern, secure IT infrastructure local for Boone’s own banks, hospital, law enforcement, and businesses, and adds meaningfully to the community’s tax base.

Lightedge will not seek any tax incentives from the City of Boone. That allows the full property taxes generated by the facility to flow to Boone’s taxing entities: the City of Boone, Boone Community School District, Boone County Hospital, Boone County, and Des Moines Area Community College.

The company will also work with the city to establish a minimum building value assessment once a final site plan is approved. That means taxing entities can count on receiving taxes based on at least that building value every year, even if the assessed value is later challenged or changes.

As a point of comparison, Lightedge’s existing Altoona facility carries a 2026 assessed value of $15,500,000 across 78,180 square feet and paid $492,324 in property taxes there over the past 12 months.

No. Lightedge’s facilities are built to serve local institutions and businesses — not to power large-scale AI computing campuses. This is edge colocation: a facility where regional companies place and manage their own equipment, at a scale one to two orders of magnitude smaller than hyperscale campuses. Lightedge has operated this model in Altoona for years.

Based on BCEGC’s review of Lightedge’s existing operations, noise levels are consistent with building cooling equipment used in courthouses, schools, and office complexes, and are well within established guidelines.

City of Boone staff — including the City Administrator, Building Official, Fire Chief, and Public Works Director — confirmed this firsthand during their tour of the Altoona facility, where they focused specifically on water usage and noise. Noise modeling will be conducted as part of the design of the new facility to ensure compliance with all regulations.

Boone-specific decibel figures and backup-generator enclosure details will be added when the acoustic study is complete.

Not yet. Lightedge and BCEGC have signed a Letter of Intent to purchase 10 acres in the Boone Business Park, and BCEGC’s Executive Board has completed its initial review of water, electric, operations, and noise.

Several sites across Central Iowa remain under consideration, and BCEGC expects to know more about the status of a potential Boone site in the coming weeks.