Turner, McCarthy announce partnership for $15B Port Washington data center project

Two major contractors announced they will work together on the next phase of the $15 billion data center in Port Washington.

New York-based Turner Construction Co. and St. Louis-based McCarthy Building Companies announced Wednesday they were selected as a general contractor for Phase 2 of Lighthouse, the 902-megawatt data center developed by Denver-based Vantage Data Centers west of Interstate 43.

In December, Vantage broke ground on more than 600 acres of farmland to build four data center buildings for tech companies OpenAI and Oracle. The project will have around 2.5 million square feet of built space and 902 megawatts of energy capacity. It is expected to be completed in 2028.

The Lighthouse project is expected to create more than 4,000 construction jobs and 1,000 permanent jobs, according to the nonprofit Milwaukee 7. Vantage has a partnership with the Wisconsin Building Trades Council to employ union labor for the duration of the project.

Whiting-Turner, Weitz and Local contractors and subcontractors are involved as well.

Working as the Turner McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. Joint Venture, the contractors will work on Buildings 13 and 14, which will host a combined 468 MW to support Oracle and OpenAI’s Stargate venture, Turner officials said in a social media post.

The data center will include cooling solutions to limit water use, added power capacity to the local grid and noise mitigation measures, they added.

Data centers in Port Washington, Mount Pleasant and Beaver Dam have faced scrutiny over electricity and water usage, as environmental groups watch the proximity between energy-intensive facilities and Lake Michigan. The Port Washington data center is listed as one of the largest Wisconsin projects.

The Lighthouse project, which is expected to have more than 900 MW of capacity to support artificial intelligence operations, will need additional power lines to operate. The Public Service Commission of Wisconsin is considering a proposal by the American Transmission Company for additional transmission lines and is meeting this week with Port Washington residents for feedback, Spectrum News 1 reported.

Meanwhile, energy demand brought on by data centers could mean between $113 billion and more than $130 billion in electricity costs in the state by 2050, according to an analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists.