The Altoona City Council is scheduled to hold a public hearing next week to rezone about 370 acres for a proposed data center development north of Interstate 80.

The city’s Planning and Zoning Commission recently voted to recommend approval of the rezoning request by Denver-based data center developer Tract. If approved, the site would be rezoned from agricultural to limited industrial.

Sam Bishop, director of entitlements for Tract, gave a presentation at the April 29 Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, where he told commission members that Tract was under contract to purchase the site bordered by the Union Pacific railroad, Northeast 62nd Avenue and Northeast 70th Avenue.

The site is close to Ankeny but does not abut Ankeny’s city limit, said Chad Quick, Altoona’s economic development director. None of the neighboring communities objected to the annexation, he said.

According to minutes of the meeting, Bishop said a road network had already been identified in the city’s comprehensive plan, which the company would honor, as well as leaving green space on the eastern portion of the property undeveloped to be consistent with the comprehensive plan.

According to meeting minutes, Tract acquires land and develops data centers all over the country.

A map on the company website shows Tract is involved in seven active projects in Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Virginia. The map shows the company has sites in the process of being developed in Texas, North Carolina, Illinois, Minnesota and Iowa.

The site that is being considered for rezoning at the May 19 council meeting is part of a larger tract of more than 800 acres that was annexed by the state’s City Development Board, which held a public hearing on the annexation request on April 9.

The City Development Board, which is part of the Iowa Economic Development Authority, approved the annexation, which was filed with the Polk County Recorder’s Office on May 9, an IEDA spokesperson said in an email.

It was one of the larger annexations for Altoona in recent years, Quick said.

He said that annexing the site made sense because the city already had installed sanitary sewer through the area.

“It was an area that we had been looking at and planning for from a utility standpoint,” he said. “It was easy from a planning standpoint. It was an easy extension of the city boundary because we had utilities that were already in that area and served that area.”

According to documents filed with the City Development Board, Altoona has approved a 10-year tax abatement for all properties within the annexed area to help them transition to city taxes.

The rezoning request from Tract has been the only request to rezone parcels in the annexed area, Quick said.

But he anticipates it will continue to be light industrial, he said.

“That is kind of an extension of what we have in that part of town,” Quick said. “It’s also an extension of what Ankeny has done in that area along Corporate Woods Drive. They have developed light industrial warehouse and manufacturing. And that is an extension of not only the Meta facilities, but the light industrial warehousing we have in that area as well.”

Quick said he believes the site being considered for rezoning is attractive for data center development because it is already served by MidAmerican Energy, and has water and sanitary sewers already serving the area.

“I think the city council and staff have shown a history of working with larger companies to some success, so I don’t think that was too difficult a stretch for them,” he said. “We’ve been through this a little bit. But I think the big thing is there’s power, there’s land and we have some water.”

Quick said Tract is looking to buy the majority of the annexed area, but is focusing primarily on the approximately 370 acres that are part of the rezoning request.

Tract is working to purchase land from three different owners, he said.

While there have been talks with Tract about their plans, no development agreement has been reached and no site plan or preliminary plat have been submitted, Quick said.

“So far, it’s just the rezoning,” he said.

Officials with Tract did not reply to an email seeking additional comment.