The Old Blog in the Desert

300 Acres, No Comment, and a Whole Heap of Dirt to Move

Honest, I don’t pretend to know what sort of cipherin’ they do up there in Redmond, Wash., but it appears that Microsoft, a kingpin in computer contraptions, has quietly bought itself a nice, wide patch of Northern Nevada sagebrush—300.7 acres of it, to be precise—at a place called Victory Logistics District in the humble outpost of Fernley.

They paid a princely sum too–$70.5 million, no buildings, no bricks, not even a painted sign—just dust and promise—to look at it and say, “Ours.”

If you ask’em what they’re fixin’ to do with that great expanse of nothing, you’d best prepare for disappointment. Microsoft ain’t talking. They wagged a finger at their website and made a polite noise about “supporting local business growth” and “working with the community.”

That’s the kind of answer you give when your boots’re in wet cement, and you don’t want to say you’ve got no idea where the sidewalk’s going.

Still, those in the know—namely Evan Slavik, the head honcho of Mark IV Capital, which owns the land—said the purchase means Fernley might soon be home to more humming servers than prairie dogs. Slavik practically popped his suspenders in pride, calling it “a major step toward data center developments,” which, translated from Real Estate Speak, means: “Boys, we’re about to get rich.”

Victory Logistics District—which sounds like a place where Julius Caesar would’ve stored his chariots—already has one tech tenant—Redwood Materials, a battery recycler with more square footage than a small kingdom. But Microsoft’s entry, if they do go the data center route, would make them the first digital titan to break ground there, and that kind of thing tends to stir up a whole mess of attention.

You might recall the “Tesla Effect of 2015″—when Elon Musk rolled into town and triggered a silver rush of tech outfits stampeding toward Storey County like a herd of caffeinated buffalo.

Mark IV is spending $120 million to flatten 600 acres of dirt and lay down roads, pipes, power lines, and other subterranean spaghetti to get ahead of the presumed frenzy. Rick Nelson, Mark IV’s Northern Nevada boss man, says they’ll be laying fiber, building roads, and preparing the land like a hopeful farmer expecting rain. The only difference is that their rain is server racks and server farms, and the crops are billion-dollar tech companies hungry for cheap power and elbow room.

They won’t be touching Microsoft’s land–oh no, that parcel’s sacred now—but they will set up the neighborhood with a road network that connects everything like a spiderweb for high-speed dreams. They’re even planning a new residential community—because what good is a digital utopia without a few humans nearby to plug it in and argue over where to put the coffee machine?

So, what does it mean for Nevada? If history’s any guide, it means more jobs, noise, and folks who say “cloud computing” with a straight face. It also means that Fernley—once a place where the most exciting thing was the wind changing directions—is fixin’ to be a hub of the future, whatever that turns out to be.

As for Microsoft, they may not be talking now—but when you plunk down seventy million for a pile of dirt, you ain’t just buying silence. You’re buying the next chapter.

And I reckon it’s going to be a loud one.