La PORTE — The city of La Porte has entered into an infrastructure development agreement with Microsoft Corporation.
The agreement, explained La Porte Economic Advancement Partnership executive director Bert Cook, “lays out performance items required by the city, many of which have already been started and/or completed, and a series of commitments from Microsoft that are designed to assist with our needs due to this ... historic economic development project.”
The framework infrastructure development agreement, as it’s called, was unanimously approved by the La Porte City Council on May 18.
First started back in June of 2024, which then consisted of Microsoft partnering with the city to construct a 245,000-square-foot data center campus on 489 acres of land on the southern edge of the city, the project has since ballooned to include roughly another 1,300 acres to allow Microsoft to expand their data center campus. These more recently acquired 20 parcels of land sit south of Boyd Boulevard, between CR-250S and State Road 2 in Pleasant Township, and will house 11 additional data center buildings, two substations, and one extra building.
Providing a summary of the infrastructure development agreement, Cook commented on a few “main items within the agreement,” which includes, for one, that Microsoft has agreed to pay $200,000 toward the “city’s costs associated with professional services.”
While Microsoft will not disclose their buildings’ square footage, the buildings are theorized to be between 300,000 to 600,000 square feet – “it’ll be on the higher end,” Cook said – and because their buildings will be taking up so much space, the tech giant “will undertake on-site ecological and biomimicry enhancements, including restoration and storm water improvements of approximately 100 acres of prairie land on the property that they will own at an estimated cost of $4 million.”
Additionally, Microsoft will spend another $300,000 to help La Porte improve Travis Ditch’s stormwater management – a feat that hasn’t been accomplished is the past 55 years.
For “the increased need for city services, Microsoft will pay $2.60 for each square foot of building area of the first data center building;” similarly, the company will also pay $3.22 per square foot for any impact caused by the data centers on the city’s roads and sidewalks.
The La Porte Community School Corp., under this agreement, will receive $1 million from Microsoft to increase the community’s AI proficiency.
Finally, the last part of the agreement that Cook summarized, “Microsoft will work collaboratively with the city to determine if it is possible and beneficial to deliver soils to Beechwood Golf Course for various projects planned at the golf course.”
As for when the city will start to benefit from the tax revenues the company creates, Cook said the earliest would be in 2029, which would be the funding from the taxes the company paid in 2028.
The money the city will be collecting from the tax revenues, said La Porte Mayor Tom Dermody, will be used to help fill in for the money the city will be losing in future years thanks to the state’s 2025 property tax changes that decreased the amount of taxes property owners pay. Collected property taxes are used to fund cities, counties, schools and libraries.
“I would like to thank Microsoft for their willingness and openness to partner on some of these items that are important to the city and will help the momentum on a short-term basis and is, more importantly from my perspective, to the school system because we know where the schools are going to be next year, and I think this will help stop the gap further and [stop] future losses in the 2027 budget,” Dermody said.
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